Dazzling! A Forgotten Jade Shines Anew!
by Ol'Velsper
Summary: Whether she knew it or not, Hisui had a place in the world. Even if it were the last thing he did, Shiki would make certain that she found it.
1. Chapter 1

It should be raining.

"Master Tohno, it's time." The priest called out to Shiki, drawing his eyes away from the window. The figures he was following down in the garden lingered on his mind, keeping Shiki quiet. Yamada continued, not losing a beat in the sheer disinterest displayed by Shiki Tohno. "If we delay more, there may be...complications."

Complications? That was a laugh.

"Afraid her blood will make her rise? Or curse us all?" Shiki's cold retort made the priest frown at him. Not wanting to hear a lecture, he explained himself. "Don't worry, I took care of it before you arrived."

Yamada silently nodded, acknowledging the heir's ability. Even if he wasn't Makihisa, Shiki Tohno did have a reassuring air to him.

"Still, it's best not to delay things." The buddhist responded, demeanor grave. "It's best if we let Lady Akiha rest."

"And Kohaku too." Shiki sharply rebuked.

Yamada merely hummed in response, turning and leaving the room as he kept his own council. As the priest exited, Shiki saw a brief flash of burgundy and red, and the sound of skirts fluttering, as he saw Hisui.

One of his female cousins followed shortly after.

Shiki remained where he was for a moment, head aching as he heard Hisui run in the direction of Kohaku's room. The new heir of the Tohno family took a deep breath, fighting off the pain with a sense of purpose. The teenager left the room, shutting it closed after him as he turned and went in the direction the priest had gone.

Once again ignoring his heart's urging to follow Hisui.

The cold darkness of the mansion swallowed Shiki, suit and all, as he descended towards the basement.

"Little sister really made all this look easy." He muttered to himself, the last words he'd speak for the rest of the day as he joined an odd dozen priests, family members, and hanger ons for the Tohno family rites.

Yeah, it really should've been raining today.

* * *

Tsukihime is property of Type-Moon. Any additional references belong to their respective companies.

Chapter 1: Ready...?

* * *

The rich scent of earth, thick after the recent rain, filled his lungs.

High above, the sun continued to shine.

"Where are you, Hisui?" Shiki called out, even as he keenly felt the humidity in his formal kimono. The dark, heavy material wasn't something he was used to wearing. It was especially jarring for the boy, who had been wearing casual clothing before this last month.

Eventually he'd get used to it, he was sure.

But...

It reminded him of what Makihisa and SHIKI used to wear.

The thought made his hands flex, feeling the irrational need to pull the clothes off. Or hack them off his body. Either was fine with him.

Shiki paused, his ears catching a noise to the left. He turned towards that direction, eyes narrowing when he heard shuffling behind the bushes off the trail. The new heir of the Tohno clan moved off the footpath he was on, taking care not to make too much noise.

He brushed branches aside to make room for himself, making a face as his kimono snagged slightly on them as he walked through.

And that's how Shiki found himself standing in an empty moonlit clearing.

The jarring transition made the teenager lose his composure, staring around like a dullard. His loss of concentration led him to let go of the branches. Shiki stumbled forward with a hiss of pain, feeling his back throb where the branches struck him on the hip.

"Not a dream...?" Shiki mumbled, lightly touching his hip as he glanced backwards the way he came. The night, and a fresh wave of pain answered him. His eyes half closed as he considered the situation.

Nothing he could do about it.

"Where are you Hisui?" The heir decided to keep heading in the direction of the noises he had heard. It was literally the only lead he had at the moment.

Shiki wasn't sure if a greater understatement could be made by man.

He was rewarded with more shuffling noises, faint enough that he wasn't sure a normal person could have caught them.

Still, it wasn't in his nature to really linger too much on something that wasn't an immediate danger.

The teenager continued deeper into the woods.

* * *

Shiki was sure that at one point, he would have been panicking about having the sun be switched off on him. For the life of him, he just couldn't really place what that point would have been.

His journey in the backyard had only gotten weirder the longer he was out here.

The humidity had been steadily vanishing the longer he had been looking for Hisui, for starters. It seemed to him like the trees were shifting on him too, their sizes changing every time he tried to orient himself.

Not to mention all the less obvious changes sweeping through the woods. From the scent of the air, to the feel of the ground beneath his feet, everything seemed to be changing from one moment to the next.

If his life were a story, Shiki felt, it was probably one where the writer had hit a block. A block that they were trying to angrily rewrite their way around.

Shiki set aside such ridiculous thoughts for another time.

"Where is she?" He mumbled, glancing around his surroundings. Anxiety had managed to worm its way through even his thick skin. Shiki couldn't help do anything about what was going on with the world around him, but nothing had happened in the last five minutes. No sudden dangers, nor Hisui, had appeared in front of him.

With the loud bleating he was making, he had expected something to meet him already.

Shiki would come to regret those thoughts.

While his bleating entreaties did nothing to call Hisui to him, it certainly caused quite a reaction.

Shiki took a step forwards, hand raised towards the moon.

The skies above, which had just been a consistent shade of darkness - well, so far as the darkness of space looked consistently dark at least - suddenly moved. Like a swarm of worms, the skies began to wiggle and shift. The stars, even the moon that his hand was raised towards, were consumed by a familiar looking sight.

Death Lines.

In a daze, Shiki reached up to his eyes, confirmed the presence of his glasses on the bridge of his nose, and aptly summed the situation.

"Fuck."

Even as the lines began to crawl over his hand, Shiki suddenly had a dawning sense of horror as he focused on what he thought had been sunshine. A bird briefly flew past the spot of light in the sky, blotting it out for a moment.

He blinked, and the obstruction moved out of the way.

Wait, it had never been night.

It was the Lines.

Lines that were covering everyt-

* * *

"I hope this morning sees you well, Lady Akiha, sister." Hisui mumbled, the former maid unmindful of the dirt and scratches on her legs and hands as she attended the small shrine she and Shiki had arranged to have built. This room had been one of the first areas restored in the condemned guest house. "We'll be repairing the rest of the building soon, I hope you two don't begrudge the speed." She mumbled, looking at the pictures of her two loved ones.

While it was presumptuous, Hisui hoped her mistress looked upon her favorably for her assumption. It was just so cold beneath the Tohno Mansion. Lady Akiha deserved to stay with Shiki and her when the house was done. Along with her big sister.

Hisui made one last adjustment, finishing the arrangement.

"You both deserved better."

Hisui glanced at the sunflowers shining next to the remains of Akiha and Kohaku, lips compressed into a thin line. She took a deep breath, turned and left the room, exiting out into the massive yard of the Tohno complex.

She needed to find Shiki.

Hisui's fingers swept through her hair as she walked out beneath the thick tree cover that clung to the abandoned building. Her attempt to manage her wind teased hair made her brush against a certain blue ribbon.

The teenager grimaced, and her hands stiffly fell to her sides.

She left her hair unkempt for now.

Shiki had always asked her, in a hushed and somewhat meandering way, why she had never done anything about the odd tree. It was one of several plants that Kohaku had cared for extensively throughout the years. The dangerous looking thing had grown out of control after she had passed away, and the younger of the twins hadn't been inclined to trim it down. It had become even larger since then, and several nasty looking barbs had appeared on its branches.

"I wonder if he thinks it's a mutant?" Hisui mused, observing the tree for a few moments. It really was oddly colored, for sure. Nature really didn't have such a bright shades of reds and greens.

Well, maybe. She wasn't really a botanist.

Hisui did know she hadn't even really watered it, leaving it to its own devices these months. It probably wasn't normal for it to keep growing.

At worst, this was a product of mad science, and at best...

"You were really talented, weren't you?" Hisui sighed. "He should've given you the ribbon." She mumbled, looking at the tree for a split second before breaking her gaze.

She lightly kicked the ground.

Hisui caught a reflection of Kohaku's ribbon in a fresh puddle of water. It sat upon her messy hair, catching her sharp eye.

She shuffled closer towards the branch.

Hisui lingered nearby, just sort of bobbing in place, one could say. If her movements brought her closer to the thorns on the branch, she really didn't notice as she thought about her sister.

Her bare arms moving closer towards the wicked looking barbs.

Closer.

"Where are you, Hisui?" Shiki's voice called out, making her whip away from the tree with a look of shame on her face. It quickly faded when noticed that Shiki was nowhere nearby. She took a quick breath to compose herself, but before she could head towards Shiki...

His follow up scream, sounding positively ghastly, made a chill run through Hisui.

She broke into a dead run.

* * *

Another hour passed - the clock above her coughed out a dusty bird.

Hisui silently looked on as the clock rang, signaling the turn of yet another hour. Her eyes tracked the dust motes in the air that were scattered as the cuckoo sang. She'd have to clean again soon.

Her hands brushed her skirt, which had dried clumps of leaves and dirt on it.

The door to Mast- Shiki's bedroom creaked slightly.

Especially since because of her, he had-

Sougen Jinan stepped out of room, casually holding onto a bag of medical supplies as he closed it. He took a glance at Hisui, who was sullenly sitting on a positively ancient looking wheelchair in the dark hallway.

"Stand up." Shiki's doctor barked, making the girl shoot up in response. "Stop being so overdramatic." He commanded, frowning.

Hisui stared, expression grim.

"He's not dead." Jinan rolled his eyes at the girl's lack of reaction. He gestured for her follow. The last damn thing he needed was her contracting some kind of tetanus from sitting on that dirty old wheelchair. He was pleased when she didn't need more than his vague gesture as she began to walk with him. The further away they were to Shiki's bedroom, the easier they could talk and not disturb him.

"I'm glad." Hisui responded, voice clipped.

Something in that response drew Jinan's eyes. The maid seemed to be curling in on herself at the moment.

"What's wrong? Spit it out."

Hisui looked like she wanted to say something, second guessed herself and went quiet. Jinan had to wave his hand for her to speak before she allowed a squeak to pass her lips.

"He was getting better." She whispered, having caught his look.

"There's no magic bullet." Jinan replied harshly. "Isn't it a bit presumptuous to think that you might somehow change his physical condition with a few months of care? We'd have a lot less death in this world if it was that easy."

Hisui wasn't sure what to say. She bit down on her tongue, feeling chills run up her spine at the man's words.

"But that isn't to say there isn't merit to what you said, either." At this point, the two of them were standing at the grand staircase. Jinan was lightly poking at the various pictures standing on the mantle behind it. Hisui nervously followed him as Jinan took a hold of a picture that had her sister, Lady Akiha, and herself on it. The doctor's eyes dimmed as he took in the smiling faces on the photograph. "A healthy mind, a strong body, and stable emotions. Do you think they're the secret to happiness, Hisui?"

His sudden question surprised Hisui. She always felt like she was drowning whenever the man showed up, allowing herself to desperately try to keep up with the man's pace. This was a new and disturbing change to their routine.

"I...suppose so?" Hisui thought for a few moments. "It... it probably doesn't matter if you had everything else, if you weren't healthy, right? W-why do you ask?"

The doctor laughed a little, setting the picture down.

"I just felt like hearing what your thoughts are. Nothing else, really." Jinan replied, confusing Hisui even more. Picking up his things, he started down the stairs, followed by Hisui a second later. Once they were back on the ground floor, he began to give Hisui her marching orders. "You'll need to replace the drip in about three hours. After that's done, just give him an injection in about eight hours."

Hisui nodded, studiously taking mental notes as they left the house. The house's massive gate appeared before them as he continued to rattle off instructions for her. If not for the man's voice, it'd be as quiet as a grave.

"Call me if you need me." Jinan told her, as he found himself standing on the other side of the gate. "Also, you still need some practice bandaging up injuries."

"Yes, sir."

Jinan nodded, but remained standing in place instead of heading home.

"Is there anything else?"

"Hm."

Hisui waited for him for a few moments, but it seemed he wasn't going to be anymore open about what he was thinking.

"G-good night, then."

"Hm."

When she saw that the doctor was paying more attention to Shiki's home than her, she began to close the gate.

"Hisui." Jinan finally called out, causing her to stop and turn back towards him. He had a grave air to his person. "You don't have to force yourself down someone else's path."

Hisui stared, feeling like she had been suckerpunched as the man pleasantly nodded at her, wished her a good night, and began to walk away. A wiggling, acidic sensation rolled up from the depths of her chest as she looked after him.

That night, the gate was closed more forcibly that it should.

* * *

The nightly patrols of the Tohno Mansion had been formally ended once Shiki Tohno had become heir.

Officially.

Unofficially, Hisui had simply looked at Shiki in silence for an uncomfortable amount of time. Then she had picked up her battery powered lantern and had left him in his bedroom. As Shiki was divested of a few articles of clothing, and the halls were cold, he had been forced to stay behind.

Hisui smiled a bit at the memory.

Still, her midnight walks had been ingrained in her at this point. It was impossible for Hisui to sleep without making a few passes of the various empty hallways. This was about the only thing she could do to repay the kindness shown to her by both brother and sister.

And...

Hisui paused, staring at a reflection of herself, cast by her light and the window looking out into the yard. The blue ribbon on her head and the orange light briefly transposed the image of another girl over her own.

She blinked. Hard.

Hisui turned down the intensity of her lantern and undid some knots. The hallway was made significantly darker as she walked away from the covered up window. Any extraneous lights were shut off by the zealous girl.

The house was found safe, and much darker, by the time Hisui was done.

Shiki would probably go around throwing on all the lights by tomorrow night, though. Then the battle would continue for another day.

Hisui arrived downstairs an hour later. A quick inspection of the kitchen showed nothing amiss. Although, a sweep of the refrigerator revealed something distressing.

They were low on the sweet plums she liked.

This would not stand.

In her indignity, Hisui obviously didn't notice the fact, or simply didn't acknowledge, that she had done a security sweep through the kitchen a half hour ago, and would probably do another one in yet another half hour.

Mysteriously, the plums would continue to dwindle each time.

On the final security sweep, a bottle was removed from one of the pantries, along with a glass cup.

* * *

It was close to two o'clock when Hisui finally was ready to approach the final room she had to check.

The two rooms she always loitered within for a few minutes always drove her here last.

She was a creature of habit.

This parlor in front of her used to be used for many things. Happy things, sad things, everything in between. To anyone else, it was just a regular sitting room. It had lovely furniture, and used to be used by Lady Akiha to greet her guests.

Once, it had hosted a disastrous drinking party. In the aftermath, Hisui and Kohaku had silently decided to keep a far closer eye over Lady Akiha whenever her friends visited. Rice cookers were also under lock and key, for good reasons.

As soon as Shiki had become heir, he had asked Hisui to air out another of the many rooms. This was partly to show that he would run things his own way. Another was that he respected the history of the parlor, in his own way.

Hisui had readily complied with Shiki's wishes.

Strangers didn't deserve to enter.

The door swung open after Hisui fumbled with the keys for a few moments. Vague shapes, outlines of the furniture cast by the barest amounts of moonlight sneaking in around the curtains, could barely be made out through the darkness within the parlor.

Hisui cranked down her lantern another setting, and slipped inside.

* * *

Hisui set down a half emptied glass in her lap, leaning against the love seat she used to sit on with her sister. Slight disgust, along with the contents of the drink, settled in her stomach. For a few moments afterward, she sat in silence as she played with her cup.

Her fingertips danced along the edge of the drink, causing droplets of condensation to slide down the sides. Hisui would catch them on the sides of her fingers, and then flick them away. Somtimes she'd let the droplets soak into her dirty skirt.

Hisui briefly wondered where her sister had kept the coasters. Lady Akiha would be mad if she soaked the furniture.

A furtive glance at a clock, barely visible thanks to the dim light, showed that she still had two more hours until she needed to swap out Shiki's IV.

"Following someone else, huh?"

The sound of her voice was dry, noncommittal. It surprised her, she had been expecting it to sound angrier.

Hisui lightly kicked her legs out, feet scooping out invisible furrows in the air. The constant motion, while soothing, caused her bangs to fall down over her eyes. A comfortable sort of laziness settled on her.

Ice tinkled in her glass as the cubes settled within it differently.

"Why did he say that?" Hisui wondered, finally looking back down. The lazy, pleasant sensation vanished as she considered her situation. She knew that she wasn't a genius, but it was hard to mess up bandaging someone's scrapes, right?

The maid shifted her hold on the glass, reaching up to drink what little there was left. Her face scrunched up as the juice went down her throat. Lady Akiha had once told her that her favorite drink took getting used to, but still.

"I still don't know how Lady Akiha drank this stuff."

The lantern was switch to its maximum lighting, revealing the entirety of the room. Hisui, sitting in the midst of the room, couldn't help but take on a despondent gaze as she took in her surroundings, already exchanging the glass for the book that was on the table.

"It's so bitter."

The brightness stung her eyes, bringing tears to them.

* * *

Hisui wondered if Jinan might be going senile, as she checked the work she had done on Shiki's leg. A quick comparison to one of her sister's books, and the section she had bookmarked, showed that it was just how it was supposed to be done. The more damning thing was that the doctor hadn't even changed anything about how she had done it.

Then came the phase of Hisui's anger that Kohaku always exploited. Hisui's unexplicable urge to apologize had lost her many an argument against her craftier sister, and now she was feeling the empathy well up in her again. It really wasn't fair, she just wanted a guilt free way to vent resentment.

It was for the best if it was purged.

Jinan had said so!

Still, as Hisui set aside the medical book, she could take a moment to appreciate the silence. Her... well, Shiki wasn't being rebellious when it came to Hisui taking care of him, for once. It probably helped that he was currently on something strong enough to daze an elephant.

Speaking of which, Hisui went ahead swapped the drips out when it ran out. With her final task done, the girl felt the sensation of exhausation finally begin to drag her spirit down with it. She let out a mighty yawn, stretching her arms over her head to try and shake it off.

At least so she could get back to her room.

Yet the empty spot next to Shiki looked mighty inviting to the sleepy girl. A brief glance down a her pajamas guaranteed that they were frumpy enough. Shiki wouldn't be enough of a boy to do anything, probably whining enough to wake her.

But if anything happened, well... she had that covered too.

What to do, what to do...

Hisui eyelids made the decision for her, beginning their treacherous descent. She decided to partially give give into her body's demands. Hisui spared a moment to undo the ribbon in her hair before setting it down on a counter next to Shiki.

A few extra covers and a pillow made the wheelchair she brought in from the hallway comfortable enough for her.

"Sleep tight." Hisui whispered, leaning over towards Shiki and giving him a quick peck on the cheek.

The darkness concealed her blush.

* * *

What he had seen in the darkness was in one sense an 'inevitability' - but like other futures stained in the shadow of the Lines, it wasn't wholly unavoidable. Knowing the nature of his own eyes, he took immediate action, and found to his surprise that the extended family was all too willing to comply to his whims.

The twilight skies over Misaki City were beautiful, making up for the long elevator ride. Shiki Tohno stepped off the elevator as it finally arrived at his destination. A few other guests exited the elevator with him, the older patrons giving him a wide berth once they took in the somewhat excessively expensive looking pin on his suit's lapel.

Shiki idly scratched at his chest, fingers trying to bat at the Tohno family crest, and moved forwards. Unlike the elevator, which had soothed him by having a great view of the cityscape, the restaurant was completely closed off, with several traditional sliding doors. The reception area ahead of him even reminded him of an imperial meeting hall he had once seen in a movie. It even had a small rock garden in the corner, along with a fountain with live fish in it.

Fancy.

Whenever a host showed up from the north entrance, they would lead their guests over to the eastern or western sliding doors.

He patiently waited his turn to go up to the large desk sprawling in front of the northern door, making the people standing ahead of him grow uncomfortable.

"Y-you...could go ahead?"

"No, that's fine." Shiki blandly replied. He had lost his own place since he wanted to take in the area. If that didn't soothe their weird paranoia, it wasn't on him. Unfortunately, it didn't seem like his words worked, though.

It was a somewhat annoyed Shiki, one who had to endure several furtive glances backwards at him, that came upon the receptionist. The woman, pleasant looking enough - in fake sort of way, smiled at him.

"Welcome to The Amakusa."

Shiki matched the put upon cheerfulness with an equally false sense of entitlement.

"Good eveni-..." Shiki's entertainment was cut short when the hostess caught the lapel. The false politeness the woman was projecting was immediately broken down by genuine fear. She stammered something that the disappointed and unimpressed boy couldn't make out, reaching beneath her desk to press something.

Seconds later, Shiki was met by a somewhat overweight, but energetic looking woman.

"Please, you shouldn't have waited in line, Master Tohno!" She rather elegantly blocked the mortified looking hostess from his view. With an extended arm, and some subtle footwork, the man was leading him through the western sliding doors.

"Seemed like common courtesy. They were ahead of me. Plus I don't mind mind waiting." Shiki's casual response brought a flash of dismay to the woman's face, causing her to shake her head.

"No! That won't do- uhm, I mean, The Amakusa has always had a wonderful relationship with your family. Please don't think it is rude at all. We simply value you all, we've been so close for all this time..." The woman continued for a little while longer on that topic, making it easy for Shiki to tune her out a bit.

He wondered if this was what Akiha had to put up with all her life.

"I'm Rebecca Amakusa, may I ask for young master's name?" The lady was good at catching Shiki's bout of sudden silence, making him decide to give her a few points in his mental checklist. At least she wasn't a blabbermouth like a few of the people he'd be seeing in a little while.

"Shiki Tohno." The young heir nodded at her. Not really wanting to leave it vague, he decided to ask a follow up question immediately. "Are you the owner here, or something?" He bluntly asked, wanting to clear things up.

"I'm in training to take it over." Rebecca replied, a bit shyly. Sounded a bit backwards to Shiki, but he wasn't exactly sure how these sort of things happened. Seemed more normal than the usual way succession happened in his family, at least. "It's a pleasure that I got to meet you, you must be practically chasing the young bachelorettes away."

"Oh, I try. I find that a good scare tends to work best. Maybe a knife, sometimes." Shiki smirked at her awkward laugh, wondering what Hisui would have thought about that. She'd probably would have broken out the feather duster and made him spit out some feathers by now.

The conversation sort of faded into idle chitchat from that point.

Shiki nodded when appropriate, taking in a few details that Rebecca told him about the restaurant. He made a mental note to check the companies that the main house were actually backing, since he hadn't known that the Amakusa's were one of them until now. Other things were mostly at the level of trivia, things about how long the restaurant had been around before they had moved into the building. Who had actually built it, and various codes that had to be honored if they wanted a spot at the building.

The one bit of news that actually sounded interesting to him was that the building they were in was going to finish its construction by building a full blown shrine at the roof of the building. Shiki really hoped that they weren't funding that part of this building, it already sounded expensive enough that they had helped the Amakusa with this restaurant.

A relaxed sort of calm eventually settled over the two as Rebecca led him into one of the VIP rooms in the back. By this point, the two young heirs were reasonably alright in each other's presence, and Shiki could afford to openly take a look at his surroundings without being accidentally insulting.

"Here we are," Rebecca stood aside, opening a door for him. Within were all the members of the extended Tohno family. They glanced up, acknowledging the heir in their various ways. "I'll bring a waiter in a few moments."

"Thank you." Shiki glanced aside at the woman, and then moved inside. He felt several eyes following him as he made his way to the head of the table. A palpable silence filled the room, several of the most important business men and women in the region waiting on him. A guy who still hadn't finished highschool, nor had any of the lifetime of training that his sister had gone through.

It was a joke.

"So, here we are." Shiki began as he took his seat, taking a few moments to meet each and every set of eyes he came across. Behind his glasses, a tiny flicker of power surged to life. "I'm going to need something from all of you."

Still, he'd find a way to deal with it. He always did.

* * *

The sound of a sitar could be faintly heard, the absolute silence in the aftermath of Shiki's request a thoughtful one.

"That's all you wanted?" Akiha's former fiance, a fatso Shiki didn't really care to remember, spoke up with an incredulous expression.

Akira Kugamine, his father, flashed him a dark look which made him quail, and quickly turned to address the master of the Tohno family with a deeply respectful expression.

"My son means no disrespect, of course. It's just - it's a very easy request to fulfill. We could have done this just as easily over the phone. There's no need for you to waste your time like this, sir."

Unlike the son, the father was certainly more elegant with his words, Shiki thought. Several of the others in the room gave subtle body cues that they agreed. He wondered if they were musing on whether or not he was wasting their time.

Better clear that up.

"We haven't met as a family for a long time," Shiki began, taking their expressions in turn. He used his prepared explanation on them, wanting to see how they reacted. "This is more so we know what we should all be doing going forward. I hate being oblique if I don't have to be, and I expect the same."

Shiki was surprised when the expected hostility in their eyes didn't manifest. In fact, a few of the older members nodded in agreement. One of the women in the room even tittered a little, almost looking like she was fondly reminiscing.

Hm, well that wasn't something he was expecting.

"Of course. We'll allow Hisui-kun to attend the school," Akira spoke for the group, cutting off a few sour looking members of the family from acknowledging Shiki's request. He shook his head with a casualness that really confirmed his words.

'What a butt kisser,' Shiki thought, but appreciated the kowtowing anyway. A few of his other relatives looked distinctly less impressed with the Kugamine's ability to fast talk. Some of them had expressions that almost mirrored Arihiko's whenever a rumor about him caused him to lose out a date.

Whatever trace amounts of nervousness Shiki had were slowly going away.

"Sorry Kugamine-kun, but you don't speak for all of us, especially when it's my school."

An outraged murmur went through the group as the person who spoke, a large man who had been ignoring the conversation up until now.

"W-what, you dare defy Master Tohno, Ishida?" Akira looked a little bit out of his element, and Shiki could tell why right away. Ishida was fairly well built for his age, and radiated menace. The only reason the teenager hadn't done anything yet was probably because it had been concealed until Kugamine's boast, and was entirely directed at the poor blabbermouth.

Pleased smiles, quickly hidden, cropped up on a few faces.

Adult society was so childish.

"No, but I'm not allowing you to play things out to your whims." The owner of the school locked eyes with Shiki. "My condolences, sir. But I do not wish for your... significant other to be in danger. There are many at Miyamori Private Academy who have lost their loved ones to demon hunters. She would be an easy target for their frustrations."

A woman to Ishida's side quickly added her own good natured statement. One that disturbed Shiki a little, if only because of what it implied about his privacy, or lack thereof.

"Hisui-chan has only been able to use Synchronization at a very low level, correct? She's pretty much at a baseline human level. Our children, when they grow... passionate, are very much a danger for her like that."

Ishida flashed the woman a gentle smile in thanks, making her blush a bit.

"It might be too dangerous, Master Tohno." Another well wisher to his side whispered, keeping his eyes down in deference. "The school has many lawless areas where anything goes." He shifted a hand, lightly pressing against his side almost nostalgically.

"It's fine." Shiki decided to cut off the chatter around him before it would get worse. He shook his head, nodding at the people who flashed him worried expressions. "I take full responsibility for this."

Ishida looked like he wanted to protest further, but a staying hand from the woman next to him stopped that.

"It's the least she deserves." His strange words were the last thing any of the relatives would hear from him for the rest of the night. It turned into a normal meet and greeting afterwards, Shiki trying to get used to running the egos that drove the corporation that was the Tohno Family.

Kugamine would continue to glare at Ishida long into the night, though.

* * *

It didn't matter that the inside of the Tohno Mansion was dim when Shiki arrived the following day. Hisui's presence was brighter than all the lights in the building combined.

"Welcome back, Shiki." Hisui offered him a slight smile, bowing towards him.

He just wished she would stop doing that.

"Hey, I'm home, Hisui." Shiki smiled at her, setting down a briefcase. He set down a overnight bag as well, reaching for a zipper on it. "I brought some things with me, too."

Hisui tracked the motion, unnoticed by Shiki as he briefly turned away. In profile, Shiki's expression looked too tired, expression tight even as his eyes shone with vitality. Her hand reached out, seeking the briefcase with a frown.

The sound of cloth - and Hisui's sudden presence so close, surprised Shiki, making him take a step back.

"Shiki!" Hisui warned outloud, seeing what was going to happen.

His feet bumped into his bags, making Hisui's eyes widen in fear. Before she could move forwards, Shiki held a hand out, barely having managed to regain his balance after wobbling in place.

"Woah, I'm okay." Shiki insisted, waiting for a second. "I'm okay. You just caught me off guard."

Shiki stepped over the bag, putting it between the two of them as he caught his breath. A brief look of hurt crossed Hisui's face as she noticed the distance. Her fingers clutched at the briefcase, wrapping tighter across its surface.

"So you finally got it, huh?" Shiki asked, somewhat wryly. His voice lowered a little bit, chastising. "I still don't understand why you still insist on doing these things."

"I'm sorry." Hisui said, looking down instead of meeting his gaze. "You looked tired, so I didn't want you to carry these by yourself."

Shiki sighed, feeling like a heel.

They had been living as theoretical equals for months now, so why did they keep having situations like these? They weren't master and servant anymore. He hadn't even wanted her as a servant in the first place.

Shiki reached for Hisui, kicking the bag aside.

He just wanted-

She looked up, briefly flinching as she saw Shiki's hand come for her head.

Hisui.

The pair stood in heavy silence, Hisui fighting back the urge to wilt underneath his hand. Shiki could feel the slight spasms as his hands gripped her shoulder, sadly aware of the way she was acting beneath his touch.

"Sorry, I'm an idiot."

Hisui opened her mouth to venomously deny that, but Shiki silenced her with a shake of his head.

"Let's carry these things upstairs." Shiki diplomatically told her, making Hisui slowly nod. Once they had his things well in hand, both of the teenagers began to walk towards the staircase. "It was exhausting dealing with the family."

While it wasn't the world's smoothest way to begin a conversation, Hisui grasped onto the topic like a drowning man.

"It would be best to not speak badly about them, Shiki." Hisui retorted, thinking of the branch family in Nagano. The daughter of the family had sent her letters practically every week since Kohaku had passed away, the well meaning condolences and letters warming her heart after the incident.

Shiki glanced over to Hisui's neutral expression. He wasn't sure if she had even noticed how she had countered him.

"Hm, you're right, Hisui." Approval was in his voice. The two of them reached Shiki's room, entering it and beginning their work. A few minutes was really all it took for the two of them to finish up, but Shiki's suitcase remained closed.

Hisui glanced at Shiki, eyebrow raised questioningly.

"What did you do while I was gone?" Shiki missed it, taking a seat at the table in the corner of the room. He gestured for her to take a seat, it wasn't like they were going anywhere for now.

"I spoke with Tokie." Hisui moved to join him. Aware of his gaze on her, she looked a bit self aware, smoothing down her skirt over her legs as she sat down next to him.

Shiki hid his smile.

"Oh, how is she?" Shiki wondered, thinking about Doctor Jinan's daughter. The nurse's shifts were getting brutal, from what he last remembered.

"She's happy at work." Hisui smiled a little. She played with her hands a little bit as she looked around the room. "Tokie was telling me about the nursing program she completed."

"Oh?" Shiki murmured, gazing at Hisui in confusion. "Are there more people that are going to join the hospital from her school?"

"Well..." Hisui took a few moments to think about how to best respond. When she did, she looked at him straight in the eyes and asked her question without any hesitation. "Shiki, can I go to school? I want to get a nursing license."

Shiki's mouth dropped.

"What?"

Hisui took a moment to compose herself. "I think it isn't realistic for us to rely on Doctor Jinan all the time. All I could do when you fell last time was just bandage up your leg. My sister was able to do way more than that when you were bed ridden."

The rush of information was almost overwhelming. He knew that Hisui had been reading through Kohaku's things, but he hadn't thought she wanted to do this with her life. Worry and elation were in equal measure in his voice as Shiki finally spoke up, trying to voice his opinion.

"But, can't you learn from Doctor Jinan?"

Hisui shifted, looking uncomfortable. "No, I don't think he'd be very patient with me." There was something there that bothered Shiki, but he wasn't sure what. He made a mental note to talk to Jinan about it soon. "That's why I started asking Tokie about her nursing school."

Shiki had to admit that Tokie was pretty good, Jinan always was talking about her in happy tones.

"It's pretty sudden." Shiki admitted, part of him trying to work this revelation into his own plans.

"It is, but I want to do this."

Shiki stood up, making Hisui blink. Thinking he was leaving, she began to rise to follow him.

"Hold up, let me show you something first." Shiki brought his suitcase back over towards Hisui, who looked confused. Setting it down in front of her, he popped open the locks and took a step back.

Inside was a white schoolgirl outfit with a blue collar. Shiki silently gazed on as Hisui picked up the outfit, letting it unfold in her hands. Embroidered on the collar was an emblem of the Tohno family.

"What do you think?"

"Uhm, it... it's a nice uniform?" Hisui stammered. She skittishly looked between the outfit and Shiki's expectant face. "Y-yeah, w-why are you giving it to me, though?"

It really was too much, too soon!

"I'm going away soon." Shiki's words made Hisui's heart clench, making her stare at Shiki in surprise. Noticing her look, he quickly shook his head. "If you're alright with it, I've arranged for you to stay somewhere while I'm gone."

"That's..."

Shiki patiently waited, staying quiet for Hisui's sake. The young girl was biting down on her lip. Hisui looked at the outfit, repeatedly smoothing the creases on the uniform. She eventually managed to pull herself away, and spoke in a clearer voice.

"How long?" She finally asked.

"I don't know." Shiki admitted, not wanting to lie. "I have to find someone important that I used to know."

A request came to mind, but Hisui held back.

'Let me go with you.'

Hisui knew she couldn't speak it outloud. If she did, it was just undermining her own goal. While it had been serendipitous that she finally had an opportunity to prepare, she still felt hesitation.

Shiki saw through her facade right away.

"The extended family know how to reach me," He began. The boy reached for Hisui, the grateful girl leaning slightly against his touch. "If you need to contact me, talk to the headmaster. He'll be able to get us in touch."

"So, just consider it preparation." Shiki smiled at her. Hisui wasn't sure if she shared his enthusiasm. "For many things."

* * *

The rest of the evening had passed in mundane happiness. Hisui had taken out the garbage, once Shiki was done shredding the take out boxes to manageable sizes. They had talked at length about pointless things, topics far removed from the Tohno family or Hisui's pending move to the school.

For them, time would essentially be frozen as they'd just continue to live out their normal days, while they still could.

This wasn't the case for everyone else.

* * *

The full moon was casting a neutral, distant gaze down upon the campus.

"Do you know what I hate the most, Arima? Little snot nosed brats that don't know their place!" A pair of children ran through chest length grass. Behind them, the twinkling lights of civilization receded.

Miyako Arima barely managed to keep the eviscerated body in her arms. Blood and other things she really didn't want to think about dripped through her arms and onto her clothing. Up ahead were several abandoned buildings, the only thing that would probably keep her living through the night.

"Not so cocky now, are you?"

"Shut up, Mishima!" She yelled back at her senpai. "Why'd you do this to him? He never did anything to you!"

Mishima simply laughed, a deranged edge in his voice.

"I swear, you're not going to get away with this!"

"Oh, the thin blood can bark, can she? But can she back it up?"

Miyako finally caught her break. Out of the darkness came the remnants of a totaled car, possibly abandoned in the field years ago, going by its condition. Taking a risk, she swiftly bounced off its roof, propelling herself far ahead of her lumbering senior.

The steel crumpling from excessive force brought a wince to Miyako's expression.

'Of course, it's always the ones with better blood that run around like lunatics.'

In direct contrast, Nagoya, the boy she had managed to barely pull out of the jaws of death simply moaned. The extensive injuries throughout the pathetic first year's body merely gushed more bodily fluids onto Miyako. Nagoya should've died already, even for a demon blood his continued survival was something short of a miracle.

'About the only good thing about our bloodline, I suppose.' Miyako thought.

Behind her, Mishima bellowed like an enraged beast, and a rusted door came flying over the fleeing children's heads. Miyako was confused for a few seconds, but realization dawned on her. A brief smile crossed her features, the ghettos flying past them.

"Stand and fight, dammit!" Mishima roared.

"Biidah!" Miyako turned, and stuck her tongue out at the red faced senior. Her figure vanished in a burst of speed, leaping sideways into one of the countless alleys that made up the area.

He had lost them.

Mishima's distant screams of frustration were music to Miyako's ears.

* * *

"Stay here.."

The poor boy seemed to have fought his way back to consciousness, moaning gibberish back at her in return. Taking it as a confirmation of some sort, the middle schooler began to pull the closest things she could grab to cover the boy.

"I'll be back in a little bit, stay quiet until then, okay?" Miyako gently, but somewhat unnecessarily asked.

Once he was somewhat concealed by the refuse around them, she rose to her feet. Trash was brushed off her hands, a grimace the only sign of her discomfort with what she had to use to cover the first year. Miyako reached into her cellphone once she had exited the alley, ready to make a call.

"No need for that." A male spoke, and a stranger's hand latched onto hers.

Understandably surprised, Miyako did the only thing that came to her mind. She dropped in a split, and lashed out with a vicious punch. It was only through the grace of the man's own reflexes that had him pull her up high enough to only take the brutal blow to his torso. The bone rattling strike was enough for him to automatically release her.

Miyako scrambled back, on full alert.

"An ambulance," The man - wearing one of the arm bands of the student council, wheezed. It was Judai, a second year. "Is on its way, Arima."

A ghost of an awkward smile appeared on Miyako's face.

"Sorry." She murmured, blushing as she stood up. She weakly defended herself. "You surprised me."

"...as charming as ever." Judai had regained his breath, rubbing his stomach. The flush of pain on his cheeks receded, bringing with them a false air of politeness. He forced one of his trademark smiles towards Miyako. "And as much of a nosy pest, I take it."

Could probably charm a person into drinking poison.

Miyako said nothing to the first statement, but narrowed her eyes and made an observation. "If there was one on its way already... why didn't you step in before that kid was hurt?"

"We miscalculated. Apologies for involving you in one of these messy affairs again." Judai said, rolling his shoulders in an exaggerated shrug. He curiously looked past Miyako, and into the alley. "Is he your friend?"

"No." Miyako's answer was clipped. "But what Mishima was doing..."

Judai shook his head.

"It isn't up to you to pass judgement. I'll take care of things now. You can leave now, thank you."  
Miyako venomously glared, but he simply ignored it. The man started walking towards the alley, ending their conversation. She was almost inclined to follow after him, but the man froze, snapping his fingers.

"Oh yes," Judai glanced back at her. "The headmaster wishes to speak to you."

Miyako froze, seeing his oily grin. Thinking it was a trick, she refused to show any expression.

"What about?"

"He had a message for you," The student council member snorted, looking at her a bit jealously. His council remained private on that issue, but the look told the story to Miyako. Outside contact was forbidden for the time the school was there. "From your brother...?"

Miyako was off like a bolt of lightning before he could even finish.

"Hmph, must be great to have an in with the Main House," Judai said, smile turning into something sinister. He turned to face the body of the student, voice turning slightly apathetic as he revealed the student's grievous wounds.

"What do you think? Is it just me, or isn't it terrible when people pull rank on others?"

Judai reached over and slightly nodded the unconscious boy's head.

"Oh! You agree?" He gasped, "We should be friends for life!"

The first year's head lulled uselessly to the side.

* * *

The last two residents of the Tohno Mansion stood side by side.

In front of them was a limo, the driver slowly putting away their extra luggage into the trunk. Behind them was a darkened building, empty of people.

"Are you ready?" Shiki asked, his question heavy with implications.

Heavy enough to make Hisui pause in thought.

"Yes," She replied, taking a hold of her suitcase. The dusty thing hadn't been used in years, and it felt awkward. "Are you?"

The question threw Shiki for a loop, causing him to laugh.

Hisui relaxed further - the laugh was reassuring, one of confidence.

"Of course," Shiki met her gaze with a happy expression. "My old teacher won't know what hit her, Hisui."

The girl seriously nodded, expecting as much. Once Shiki set his mind to it, there wasn't anything that could really stop him.

Both of them silently began to approach the car, seeing the driver getting close to finishing.

"Do you think I'm ready?" Hisui asked.

"Do you feel ready?"

"No." Butterflies danced in her stomach. "Not at all."

"Then you're more than ready." Shiki retorted, opening the door for her. "It's the confident ones that fail."

Hisui glanced at his earnest expression.

She got into the car.

* * *

"We're almost there, Master." The driver called back to them.

The grip on the door she was leaning on creaked. Hisui could feel Shiki's eyes on her once she began to tightly hold onto the door. Instead of choosing to acknowledge it, Hisui silently continued to focus on the school.

It rose over the rest of the buildings they were driving past, on top of the tallest hill that the town was famous for, and had a strange sort of aesthetic that Hisui couldn't place. Something primarily japanese, but it also had elements that reminded her of the Tohno Mansion.

"Noticed it?" Shiki asked, getting a nod from her. He was being strangely attentive to anything different with their surroundings. Then again, it had been several hours since they first got on this car. "Ishida lived at the mansion for a while, it seems. Liked it enough, but said he 'wanted to improve it.'"

"Lady Akiha knew him." Hisui murmured, glancing off to the side. At least knew him well enough not to declare him an threat, unlike several of the extended family. "They... got along. Reasonably well."

Shiki smirked.

The streets were rather narrow, the dirt paths intended for foot traffic. Their limo had to move slowly up the road to prevent any accidents. A few locals were even pointing towards their car once they left them in their wake.

Hisui nervously licked her teeth as she saw a few familiar uniforms amongst the crowds.

'Please don't see me.' She thought, squirming a bit deeper into her seat.

"Looks like some of your schoolmates live off campus." Shiki had noticed. Hisui resisted the urge to wince as the boy lifted himself a little to glance back at the students they had passed. She worried if the students could see them.

Hisui sunk down a little bit, drawing a strange look from Shiki.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing." She quickly answered.

Before he could say anything else, their car hit a bump in the road as it came to a sudden, causing Shiki to let out a muted grunt of pain as his head bounced against the roof of their car. The oranges Hisui had brought for her guide started rolling out of the bag she had bought them from - making her desperately scramble for them.

"What's going on up front?" Shiki grumbled, rubbing his head. He had been a little bit grumpy ever since they had entered the town.

"Sorry sir, we gotta wait a bit." The driver apologized. "The train is passing through."

Hisui glanced up towards the front, arms full of oranges. The driver was pointing ahead of them at a set of tracks that divided the road in half. At the moment it was carrying a rather large compartment full of students directly up to the top of the mountain.

"Funicular." Hisui corrected, drawing a curious glance from both Shiki and the driver. She ducked her head, putting the runaway fruit back into the grocery bag. "That's what it's called, I think? Kohaku showed it to me in a book."

The pictures of San Francisco had looked pretty, but Hisui didn't think Shiki could handle the thought of another city with as many hills as this town.

"Wish we could take that." Shiki whimsically mused, following the cab heading straight up the mountain. "We'd get there faster, that's for sure."

While Shiki was focused on their destination, Hisui spared another glance in the direction they had come from. The sharp drop down the side of the hill they were driving, along with a picturesque view of the countryside made Hisui's heart go out to Shiki. It wasn't going to be easy for him to go back the way they came, especially with how he was behaving on the way up.

The driver winced.

Hisui mentally wished the best for the poor driver.

"Well, the headmaster just wanted to make sure you both arrived safely."

"Yeah, yeah."

Hisui began to tie up the grocery bag, making sure they wouldn't spill out again. Seemed Shiki was still feeling antsy, since he immediately called her out. Hisui didn't particularly mind - it at least got some pressure off the poor driver.

"I'm not sure that kind of oranges would be best."

The statement made the girl frown.

"Why's that?"

Shiki seemed to be a bit self absorbed as he casually responded.

"They're not from the local market." He paused, thinking for a few moments. "I don't know, they just taste better."

Hisui silently agreed. The food really was fresher at the local stores. Anyone who had grown up on her sister's food could tell what was and wasn't good.

"I can find it cheaper at the supermarket." She countered. A surge of embarrassment briefly entered her voice. "It's...probably better if we save somewhere. Especially with how we eat, Shiki."

Hisui had other reasons she couldn't go back to those local stores.

"Figured they'd give us a discount." Shiki's sulky voice brought her back to the present. "Plus, we don't really have to worry about money, Hisui."

This line of discussion wasn't going to head anywhere.

Hisui decided to ask the question she had been trying unsuccessfully to get an answer to for their drive. "Shiki, who am I going to be meeting at the school, again?" She wondered, glancing up at him once she had finished tying her a knot.

"Mmm, well, it's someone I've known for a while."

Hisui blinked, finally getting a somewhat straightforward answer. She didn't even notice as she breathed out in relief.

The cabs eventually stopped coming, allowing their limo to move again. Its engine roared a little as they got onto the tracks. They were bumped about a little as the car drove over the rest of the tracks and got back onto the dirt roads. Shiki looked so sad that Hisui placed a comforting hand on his arm, drawing a queasy looking smile from him.

"It's almost over." She consoled him.

Unfortunately.

* * *

Dirt gave way to concrete a few miles away from the school, making the remainder of the trip easier on Shiki. They briefly lingered in front of a massive gate, woven with an image of the Tohno Family on the front of it. The gate guard merely gazed at their car before letting them go ahead, opening the gate electronically from within the office to the side of the road.

Once they were within the walls of the compound, the road began to widen. The trees and plants that had been practically clinging onto the limo's sides throughout their trip slowly began to recede.

Modern buildings and even an occasional car began to appear along their path.

Residents stood out on balconies on the side of their buildings, doing their laundry. Children spinning and draping themselves off the side of street lights. A massive wall of oriental, and other sort, of charms were plastered along the walls of a large shrine. A large plaza filled with students milling about.

Countless streets, each with as many buildings as the eye could see.

The Tohno Family had built a city up here.

And all roads led to their destination. The massive building sprawling ahead of them was the center piece. With a clocktower to cap it off, instilled both awe and terror in Hisui with its scale.

She wouldn't have a moment of respite.

Their car began to pull into a large, circular path in front of the school. The bottom of Hisui's stomach fell the closer they approached. Several large doors were along the front of the building, from which students were entering and exiting. Pillars were supporting an awning that extended out from the front of the building, keeping the majority of where they would be stopping shaded from the elements.

"Welcome to Miyamori Private Academy." The driver announced, easing their car alongside a large set of stairs leading upwards to the entrances. There were people already waiting, moving towards the trunk of the car once their limo was no longer moving.

Hisui's involuntarily trembled.

"Shiki..." She began.

The named boy looked away from where their driver was exiting the vehicle. "What is... it?" His voice trailed off as he caught the way Hisui was holding herself in check. She found herself the recipient of sudden embrace.

"Let it out." Shiki advised.

Hisui nodded, breath hitching in near hyperventilation as her body's shook in his hold.

"Breath, Hisui."

Her out of control breath slowly, agonizingly began to even out. Fortunately, the staff was discrete enough not to deliberately ignore them. The thought of anyone else not sharing that same discretion brought another full body shudder, and a renewal of her hyperventilation.

Shiki simply reaffirmed his last two suggestions.

Minutes passed.

The enormity of what Hisui had decide to do had finally crushed her. She could feel her heart throbbing wildly in her chest. Hisui's reflection showed her face was completely flushed, and it looked like it was going to swell if she stayed distressed for much longer.

"I-I w-want to g-go...!" Hisui nearly sobbed, teeth painfully chattering. Why had she been so stupid? A look outside the window showed a sea of disinterested face, occasionally broken up by a solitary person or two that curiously inspected them.

Which only served to feed into her mounting stress.  
Just as it was about to peak-

"You said that you hoped to pursue a degree."

Her responding nod was slow.

"If you're serious about it, you have to start on this path."

Hisui briefly pictured the mansion in her mind. Her thoughts drifted to the shrine in the guest house. An irrational, irritating force built in her heart. She tightened her hold on Shiki, and shook her head.

Doctor Jinan's words came to mind.

...no.

She could do this. She had to. There wasn't any other choice.

"-I'm never going to pressure you to do something you don't want to do." Shiki had been speaking all this time, Hisui finally noticed. "Just say the word, and we're gone. Do you want to-?"

"...no."

"Trust me, then." Shiki spoke into her ear. His hand, which ran up and down her back soothingly this whole time, stopped.

What a total reversal from a year ago.

"We... didn't even need a door this time." Hisui weakly joked, nodding into his shoulder. "Of course. I'll trust you forever, Shiki."

Hisui immediately nodded into his shoulder, leaning more against his body. That wasn't even a question for her.

The sound of the door opening echoed in her ears with a note of finality.

Hisui felt a hand on her cheek, delicately lifting her face from where it was pressed against Shiki's shoulder.

"Hi again." Shiki greeted.

Hisui smiled.

The light outside was dazzling, but not as much as Shiki's gentle expression. She was briefly lost in his eyes, and by the time she came out of it, she noticed that she was standing side by side with him.

Hisui's hand sought out Shiki's hand.

"Let's go." Hisui said.

Their expressions lost the last bits of hesitation. Together, Hisui and Shiki began to ascend the steps.

"They're just like me." Hisui murmured beneath her breath, taking solice from the fact.

"Hm?"

Hisui shook her head, and offered a tiny smile at Shiki.

Half way up their ascension, they noticed a few elevated platforms above them. While most of them were full with steel tables and seats, used at the moment by hungry or studious students, one of them was curiously empty.

"Get back here!" A sudden shout came from above, attracting Hisui and Shiki's gaze. Several balconies were suited along the front of the building. Behind the railings were what appeared to be hallways. "Tell me why you moved tha- oh crap, don't you dare!"

A brown and blue blur went over the balcony edge, their path clearly the spot next to them. Shiki quickly pulled Hisui back, and the latter didn't even get a chance to scream as the figure touched down in a textbook gymnastic landing.

Hisui boggled.

The girl that stood before her and Shiki was slightly awkward looking, a bit too gangly in the limbs. In time, she'd definitely grow into them, but the energy practically pouring off her was intoxicating.

"Arima Miyako has arrived!" The brunette declared, lowering her arms to flash the two a bright, eager smile and a thumbs up.

Angry bellows followed from an adult that had been upstairs, too garbled with frustration to really be able to be understood. The students that briefly passed by offered either sarcastic applause, or were too busy glancing upwards with smiles uncomfortably close towards the sadistic side of things.

Much like how Akiha used to smile, come to think of it.

"H-hello?" Hisui shakily offered. At the same time, Shiki waved up at the balconies. Whatever he did immediately shut up the enraged teacher, since their bellows were silenced very quickly. For Hisui's own benefit, she decided to not gaze upwards right now. The day had gone surreal enough on her.  
"Helloooo, there!" Miyako responded, looking as pleased as a puppy. At her side, Shiki snorted, observing everything with warm eyes. That drew the younger girl's attention over towards him. "Long time no see, big brother!"

Hisui blinked, glancing over at Shiki.

His grin widened in answer.

Miyako crouched, seemingly stretching out her legs. For a moment, a black cloth poked its way out of her skirt's pocket, briefly caught by Hisui's eyes. Aware of the older girl's gaze, Miyako blinked and looked down.

Her smile briefly vanished.

She shoved it back into her pocket, somewhat harshly, and turned towards the two with a renewed smile.

"Reporting for my mission, sir!" Miyako saluted towards Shiki. "I am ready and willing to be big sister Hisui's roommate, sir!"

The poleaxed look on Hisui's expression brought a somewhat impish look look to the girl's face.

"At ease." Shiki said, chuckling at the goings on.

"Too soon?" Miyako wondered, quirking her head.

"I think you broke her." Shiki observed, not once releasing his hold on Hisui's hand. Behind them, the school continued to march to its own beat, ignoring the drama of three tiny people amongst the crowds.

Yet amongst the crowd, one person intently studied the trio.

Just waiting for his moment to strike


	2. Chapter 2

Tsukihime is property of Type-Moon. Any additional references belong to their respective companies.

Chapter 2: Fight! 

* * *

A bird call mournfully swept through the valleys, the last call of the day.

Miyako and Hisui stood at the threshold of their dorm, warm light from within illuminating their profiles as they looked out over Shiki. His car was slowly fading off into the distance.

It was getting late in the day, a twinkling blanket of darkness descending on them.

"Uh," Miyako awkwardly began, looking up at Hisui. "Should we go in now?"

The older girl remained standing where she was, hands silently smoothing the front of her blouse down repeatedly. Miyako simply nodded, refusing to say more, and looking back in the direction Shiki had driven off.

The lights on the back of the limo carrying him away were the last things their eyes caught. But even they vanished in the end. Miyako didn't even need to say anything, Hisui was already clearing her throat.

"I'm sorry."

"Don't worry. If I had a boyfriend I'd probably do the same!" Miyako laughed it off, stepping towards the door. The younger girl missed the flush on Hisui's cheeks, leading the older girl inside the dorm.

A tingling film of static electricity clung onto them as they crossed the threshold.

Their vision pulsed, and the facade fell away.

The ground vanished a yard ahead of them, replaced by several ascending bookcases which rose to act like a staircase for them. The sounds of paper rapidly fluttering echoed in their ears, as they scaled the bookcases.

Miyako casually kept pacing forwards, but Hisui took a moment to take in her surroundings. This was the second time she had entered the room, and was still as amazed as ever. Lingering in place, she looked out across the vista, seeing several wooden columns in the distance. Hovering near them were small books, flapping their covers like wings as frequent gusts of hot, moist wind from below kept them in the skies.

Hisui clasped her hands, gazing as a particular book struggled to keep aloft. It began to move towards her, desperately trying to reach the empty case below. Whatever was wrong with it was making it lose altitude, but she couldn't tell what the problem was from this distance.

"What are you doing down there, Hisui?" Miyako asked, peering down at her. Hisui looked away from the book, surprised at the sudden voice. "C'mon! We gotta report to the Supervisor."

Hisui gave the younger girl a sheepish smile.

"It's just so amazing."

Miyako looked around her, tapping her foot as she considered it with a quirked head. Whatever she was looking for didn't seem nearly to impress her, though.

"Eh, they're just books." Miyako pronounced, shaking her head. "You know what's better than this? Cake. We can get it if we show up early!"

With that, she quickly began to leap up the steps.

Hisui lingered for a few moments, looking over for the book she had spotted. Not finding it in the sky, she briefly felt disappointment.

A rustling below her made her glance down.

The book from before was cradled inside a shelf just below her feet by a larger thesaurus. Their figure of the smaller book nudged itself closer into the embrace of the larger.

Miyako's plaintive call pulled Hisui away before she could investigate further. 

* * *

The top of the bookcases seemed like a normal greeting room. The open void below gave way back to normality. But the walls and ground felt transient, like a good knock on them would cause the whole thing collapse back into the chaos they had just gone through.

"We're back, Supervisor! Thank you for letting us see my brother off."

Miss Asahina, the dorm mistress, looked up from her reading nook.

Setting down her book on the table in front of her, she rose from her chair and moved towards the two, her low heels clicking slightly on the stone ground.

"That's quite alright." Asashina replied, flashing them a tolerant look. "Visitation was allowed today, so there was no issue."

In Hisui's opinion, the woman looked very stately, and a light dusting of grey on her hair only complimenting her jaw line and sharp grey eyes. She was like a statue; elegant, but unapproachable.

"You're so kind, Supervisor." Miyako sang, swaying back and forth on her feet. "Could a generous soul such as yourself find it in her heart to reinstate my cake privileges?"

"Miss Tohno," The dorm mistress ignored Miyako completely, eyes glittering darkly as she addressed Hisui. "I expect you to set an example for the rest of the girls. Don't expect me to treat you any differently than the rest of the house because of your status, do you understand?"

"Y-yes." Hisui was taken aback, surprised that was a thing to be worried about. "Why would I want to be treated differently?"

The way Asahina's held herself relaxed slightly.

"Then get yourselves to your dorm. I imagine you have many things to unpack still. Have a good night, I hope we won't have any problems, Miss Tohno." The woman commanded, nodding at Hisui. Miyako squeaked, trying to get a word in edgewise, but Asahina was already returning to her own affairs.

Miyako whimpered, drooping in place. 

* * *

The chatter of young women surrounded Miyako and Hisui as they moved past the entrance hall towards the rooms. Hisui stuck near the edge of the hallway, practically brushing across door knobs while Miyako energetically shouted and waved to get the attention of random girls. One of them even approached the two a few feet away from their room.

"Where were you, Miyako?!"

Miyako sighed, looking expectant.

"You missed practice again, how are you going to-" A severe looking ash blonde, carrying herself with a little bit too much authority for her small stature, came to a sudden stop before them. In her eagerness to begin chiding Miyako, she had barely noticed that Hisui was awkwardly standing there, and that made her come to a screeching halt while she considered the older girl.

"Are you bothering this lady, Miyako?" Hisui didn't quite appreciate the way she had been addressed, but she wasn't sure why.

Miyako huffed, crossing her arms.

"Hana, stop damaging my good name." She intoned, practically sneering. Miyako half turned, and her arms swayed as she presented Hisui to Hana like a sideshow attraction. "I'm showing my big sister around the school."

"You...?" Hana blinked, looking unimpressed. She looked up towards Hisui, catching her eye. "Miss, even if she's your sister, I recommend you get another guide. At least for the sake of your soul."

"What?!" Miyako exploded, turning red.

Hisui blinked, looking away from the two arguing girls when one of the doors across the hall opened, illuminating the area with midday sun. Several of the others walking through the hallway suddenly seemed to decide they had to be somewhere else.

Dry wind assaulted them, ruffling all three girl's outfits while a high pitched wail of a strange creature bellowed out from inside the room.

A tall, dark skinned girl peeked her head out.

"Take it somewhere else, you two!" She drawled, in a warning tone. It was backed up by a tremendous growl from within her room. "You ain't gettin' to arguin' outside my door this night, no sir!"

"But-!" Hana began, and she was punished for her troubles by a long plant-like tendril that suddenly flew out from inside the dark skinned girl's room. Hana yelped, making a break for freedom, but the appendage was faster. It quickly snagged her up by the back of her uniform, and tossed the screaming girl away down the hallway with a flick.

"Anyone else going to keep me from tanning?"

Miyako yelped, grabbed Hisui's hand, and dragged her away towards her room. The older girl stared back at the dark skinned girl, fascinated despite her better judgment. Hisui was met by a cute smile from the other girl.

"My name's Christina, hope we can talk at a better time, neighbor!"

"Uh, okay?"

Miyako quickly opened their door, shoved the two of them inside, and slammed the door shut behind them.

"So!" Miyako brightly ignored what had just happened like a champion. "Welcome to our room!"

Hisui stared, and remembering her manners, deeply bowed towards Miyako.

"Thank you for having me." 

* * *

"You didn't bring much, huh?" Miyako observed, shifting on her bed as she tried to look at what her roommate was doing.

Hisui folded another towel, setting it to the side.

"Well, the room's large enough." Miyako awkwardly tried to keep the conversation going. "You should bring more stuff back on break."

Hisui paused and considered Miyako's words. The younger girl was right, their room was pretty large. Hisui would have been hard pressed to fill it if she were staying alone.

"Maybe." She allowed.

Miyako relaxed a little when she saw Hisui continue to silently take in their surroundings.

"Not very impressive, huh?" Miyako wondered, flopping back onto her bed. "I'm not very pure. Miss Akiha could have constructed a better piece of land than this, I'm sure. Shiki said she was pretty good."

Hisui knew what Miyako meant.

"You're fine as you are, Miss Arima." The redhead responded, delicately sitting on the edge of her bed to address Miyako. "Lady Akiha would have given anything-"

Miyako suddenly laughed, making Hisui come short.

"Oh, no!" She continued with a giggle, waving her hand to stall Hisui. "No, I didn't really mean it, sis. I'm perfectly fine with my little piece of the world." Miyako paused for effect, "Unless you'd like to live in the Supervisor's library or Christina's desert?"

Hisui considered.

"The books were cute."

Miyako snorted in mirth. "Let's go take a bath. Lights out are going to be soon, and I don't want to be caught by the supervisor." She rolled off her bed, hopping towards her desk. Snatching up a key from the top of it, she began to rummage for clothing and a basket of soaps.

Once both of them were ready, they headed out to the baths. 

* * *

A face, frozen in a look of blank shock, stared back at Hisui. Several more were hidden in the swirls of the grey wood, coming in and out of the door she was facing. Or maybe it was a trick of the light.

"We got such a great bath here, Hisui." Miyako shamelessly shilled her school, unheeding of Hisui's sudden caution. She took out the key she had tucked into skirt pocket, reaching for the bronze knob on the door. "Oh, remind me to get you a key when we go talk to the Supervisor tomorrow, Hisui. You can soak here if you want in between classes. The staff cleans the baths every night."

"Around what time?" Hisui wondered, professional curiosity engaged.

"About one in the morning, I think?"

Once unlocked, the massive wooden door swung open of its own violation, groaning. Hisui narrowed her eyes, staring as she saw the mouths on the faces move.

"Ah, can't wait to jump in and relax." The younger girl sang, moving towards the clothing cubbies behind the cement wall erected ahead to keep people from looking inside the baths. "I feel so dirty after talking to Hana~"

Hisui lagged behind Miyako's steady march into the steamy room, choosing to take a second glance at the door.

Yep. There were faces there. She lightly poked her index finger at one of them. It lightly suckled at her digit, putting on surprising amounts of force.

"Miss Arima?"

"Call me Miyako!" The rebuke floated to her from behind the cement wall. Hisui pulled her finger free from the sucking maw of the door, and then walked inside the bathroom. She inspected the side of the door that faced the baths. "What is it?"

The wood was completely smoothed out on this side.

"Nevermind." Hisui responded, having ensured propriety was met. "How large is the tub?" She asked, closing the door as she followed Miyako.

"It's amazing! You can easily swim in it! I think it was the personal baths of one of the old Supervisors before they retired. The school liked it so much that they just had to keep it around for the rest of the school to enjoy."

"Oh? So the faculty can create land too? How did they keep this, then?"

"Hm... I'm not sure."

The door groaned as it slammed shut. 

* * *

And so, Hisui's first night casually ended after a bath. 

* * *

A small crowd was already forming in the distance, moving in and out of the main entrance of the school. The sun was barely rising over the horizon, and the freshly watered scent of grass filled their lungs.

The two girls had left early that morning per Miyako's advice, long before the morning rush would have filled the hallways with women.

Hisui was quietly grateful they had left early, she didn't want to really deal with too many crowds today; even now she was half a step behind Miyako as the two girls moved off the main path to  
the school.  
"Where are we going?"

"It's a shortcut."

Bushes and trees vied for attention as they crossed over a dirt path.

"So, what do you think about the school?" Miyako wondered, a bit weirded out how Hisui was lingering behind her, but choosing to stay silent.

"I think the uniforms are magnificent!"

Miyako paused, nearly causing Hisui to collide into her back. She spun, moving backwards, as she looked at Hisui with disbelief.

"Are you being sarcastic, sis?"

Hisui shook her head, lovingly holding up her arm. She ran a hand along the sleeve, pointing out the way it was sewn towards the ignorant Miyako. "This was hand sewn. By someone really skilled. I would be amazed this school kept such a talented person on retainer, but Lady Akiha always told me they hired and trained... the best."

Miyako blinked at how she trailed off, catching a brief melancholy on her features. Something told her it was best to keep the conversation going, even if it was something that bored the living hell out of her.

"So, tell me about... knitting?" She prepared for the worst.

Hisui brightened.

It was as bad as she had expected. 

* * *

Miyako snorted awake, a curse flying from her lips when gravity pulled her off the edge of her bed.

The light of the dawning sun blazed through her dorm room's curtains, searing her eyes. She shuffled through her tangled covers, and kicked her pillow aside. It bounced against her bookcase, knocking askew a small panda figurine she had on the bottom self.

"Wah!" She coughed, wiping some drool away from her mouth. "What happened?"

'And this is why you need to find the right materials,' Imaginary Hisui intruded into her peaceful day, making a primordial fear bubble forth.

Miyako angrily swiped at nothing in particular, trying to get her blood circulating enough to forget the excessively long speech from last night.

Speaking of which, Hisui was nowhere to be seen.

"Oh no," She whispered, quickly looking around. She ducked beneath Hisui's bed, lifting up the plain white sheets and peering below. "I lost big brother's wife!"

A portent of doom - Shiki, wearing a business suit with a frollicking panda tie and looming over a quivering Miyako while shaking his fists flashed through the second year's mind.

"L-lost and found! I-I have to go to the lost and found!" Miyako yelped, quickly scooping up her things into her arms. Pencils and hair ties bounced out of her hands while she made a bee line to their room's private washroom. Steam immediately fired out, keeping a cream colored set of pajama bottoms and off white tee floating in the air for a moment. 

* * *

Hisui hummed to herself, walking along the hallways with a curious attention to detail. The focus the newcomer was giving to the windows in particular were drawing a few curious stares. Others were wondering what the deal with the especially lacey hairband the girl was wearing.

On the other end of the hallway, people moved out of the way of a second year that was gliding ahead without attention to where she was moving. She didn't look especially special, perhaps even below average, as her height was rather dismissive. The girl's unkept black hair only had enough attention paid to it to be done up in a thick braid that hung off her shoulder.

Several scars were noticeable on the girl's hands.

The embroidered cloth wrapped tightly around a suspiciously long package dissuaded everyone from approaching her.

A few bystanders, sitting on the top of their benches or leaning directly in front of posters asking for students to stop loitering around, could only watch as the spacey redhead lumbered into the path of the swordswoman. 

* * *

"How can I be so stupid?!" Miyako hissed, leaping out of her room, and kicking the door closed behind her.

The building itself wasn't the only thing weird about this place, and the Arima girl had let herself get lulled to sleep before really warning Hisui to watch her step. 

* * *

The second and third year stared at one another.

"What do you want?" She wondered, looking at the distinctive third year broach on Hisui's lapel. "Senpai."

"Excuse me," Hisui called out to the shorter girl. "May I ask if you know where the commissionary is located?"

The swordswoman narrowed her eyes, thinking of all the reasons a third year would ask such a stupid question out of the blue. She could obviously see it just outside the window. It was across from them.

Sure, she couldn't see it that well since the windows were designed by stupid giants that never thought about the average Japanese woman's height...

Wait.

Was this some sort of bullying?!

The younger girl awkwardly shifted in place, returning Hisui's expectant look with an increasingly nervous one.

Someone nearby coughed, feeling the awkwardness on their behalf.

"It's... over by the next building, down the hall, and to the right?"

Hisui blinked.

"Is that a question?" The redhead murmured, confused at the way it was being told to her.

"Do you want to make it one?" The shorter girl asked in a warbling tone. "Huh? Huh! Well, I'll have you know that it's clearly over there!" She pointed upwards at a nearby window.

Hisui followed her pointing, staring at the window sill. Then had the gall to move over towards it, touching it. A look of annoyance crossed the older girl's face, and she rubbed her fingers together to get the grit of dirt off them.

"Oh, it's a little dirty." She muttered, not able to take out her years of work. "I suppose they just swipe the surface."

The younger girl let out a strange noise, tapping her wrapped weapon against her shoulder hard.

"Oh, so they can't quite see the bottom, is that right?" She sweetly asked.

Hisui quietly nodded, her agreement dooming her.

"Haa, why don't we go outside, senpai?" The swordswoman rolled her words with a hissing breath. "I'll take you straight to the commissionary, okay?"

The older girl beamed at her.

"Thank you!" Hisui happily moved next to the younger girl. "What's your name? I'm Hisui, a third year. Have you been here long, miss. . . ?"

The question made the other girl's hand tighten on her bundle.

"I'm Sayoko Mihara." Then for emphasis, barked the rest. "Second year, senpai."

"Oh." Hisui glanced down at Sayoko. She gave every impression of wanting to lean down nad pat her on the head. "You're very cute, Mihara!"

The second year's eyebrow twitched. 

* * *

Miyako nearly crashed into a wall as she skid into the dormitory entrance. A few older girls gave her a dismissive look, returning to their books. One of the girls from Miyako's neighboring class gave her a friendly holler, ambling over towards her.

"Morning, Arima." She tucked her shaggy hair behind her ear, smiling at her with teeth. "You just missed out on something interesting."

Miyako gave Chiyo Tanaka a suspicious look. The dopey looking girl only came alive when bad things happened to others around her. She was practically a goddess of misfortune in their year.

"Sorry, I can't play right now." She denied the other girl. "I have to go to the lost and found."

Tanaka danced into Miyako's path, blocking her with her above average girth.

"Does it happen to be a girl with an outrageous piece of headgear?"

"Huh?"

The chubby girl's eyes gleamed, "Like, something a maid might wear?" Her question hit its mark, making Miyako grimace. The young Arima knew better to play coy, so she went ahead and gave the girl what she wanted.

"My sister in law." She blurted. "Hisui Tohno."

Tanaka pouted, saddened that Miyako had given up so easily.

"How much?" Miyako started reaching for her pocket, but her hands were stopped by Tanaka.

"Oh, this one's on the house." She laughed. "Your sister was actually messing around with Little Miss Mihara from the second years."

"What?!" Miyako covered her mouth with her hands.

"Haha, yeah. Didn't know you had an in-law that bad ass, but it was great to see someone make the shrimp squirm. Thanks for finally sending someone in to help us little people. She was starting to get too up in herself just because no one wanted to challenge her after that incident with the gang..."

Tanaka yelped as the other girl grasped her sweater and dragged them nose to nose.

"Where is she?" Miyako shook Tanaka. "Where'd Mihara take Hisui?"

"Wah, woah, wait!" Tanaka ineffectually slapped Arima's wrists, "They went up to the roof!"

Miyako dropped Tanaka on her rear, and tore across the entranceway.

"Geez," The plump girl complained, rubbing her neck. "Like a Tohno would have anything to worry about from such a thin blooded demon." 

* * *

"What are we doing up on the roof, Miss Mihara?"

"...it's better if you get an overhead view of the school. You'd be able to see where everything is in relation to each other. Sort of like in the world map in a video game, right?"

"Oh... I don't play video games, they're too violent."

"Well, I used to believe that too, but a game is just a game. Virtual violence is better than real violence. I'd rather stomp on a Goomba's head than crack someone's ribs."

"That's...!"

"That's fine too, of course."

"..."

"Sometimes you have to use it to make your point clear. Especially when other people get uppity and desperately ask for their attitude to get adjusted."

"Mihara..."

"The school has prohibited violence, but there are some places where it's allowed within reason. Up here lets us use only a fraction of our abilities, but I think it should be enough. Now, why don't you tell me your full name before we start?"

"...very well, I am Hisui Tohno."

"...!"

"Pleasure to meet you!" 

* * *

Cries could be heard drifting down from the roof.

"Stop! Stoooop! Stooooooooooop!" Miyako bellowed, kicking open the door to the roof.

She crossed her arms before her in an X, diving through with her eyes clenched tightly to avoid watching the bloodshed. Shiki couldn't kill her if she didn't acknowledge there was a problem in the first place!

"Miyako?"

"Make love, not war!"

"A little help?"

"Give peace a chance!"

Miyako yelped as an eraser bounced off her nose.

"Hello," Hisui gently smiled at Miyako. The expression was slightly frayed at the sides. "Please help?"

Sayoko Mihara was bawling her eyes out. The girl was a mess, reddened nose and flushed cheeks. The older girl was trying to pull the swordswoman away, but Sayoko would grasp the taller girl's ankles.

"Buh?" Miyako was agog.

Hisui blushed.

"Help?" 

* * *

Sayoko Mihara hiccuped once, flashed them a wobbly stare, and descended the steps back into the school.

"What did you do?" Miyako demanded, swiveling towards Hisui.

'And can you teach me how to do it.' Was left unsaid, but heavily implied by the sparkling look in the younger girl's eyes.

"Aah," Hisui looked off to the side, twiddling her thumbs together. "Eh, b-but I didn't do anything."

Miyako got up into Hisui's personal space, looking up at her.

"T-too close."

"Really."

"I...really don't know." Hisui weakly defended. "I just did what I was taught."

"Ah! Of course big brother would teach you how to fight. He's a genius when it comes to fighting. He kills things so badly they never reincarnate again!" Miyako snapped her fingers, swinging her arm with the motion.

"That isn't something to brag about!"

"Nyeheh."

"And it wasn't Shiki that did that." Hisui huffed, adjusting her headband for comfort. "Kohaku taught me."

"Secret maid arts?!"

"I don't know," Hisui mused, ignoring Miyako. "What I did wrong, though."

Miyako quirked her head, prompting her to go on.

"Well, Kohaku always told me that if I ran into a situation where talking didn't work, that I should offer my most sincere smile and apologize."

"But you're kind of a cold fish, right?"

"I'll ignore that." Hisui stared at Miyako with flinty eyes. "But I guess I don't emote as much as I should. Maybe that's why I made her mad. So I tried to copy what Kohaku showed me one time..."

"Mmm?"

Hisui showed her.

"Gyah!" 

* * *

Later that night...

The redhead was critically examining her face. She would take a hold of one of her cheeks, lift it, and then lower it. Then both.

"C'mon, Hisui." Miyako pawed at the door to their bathroom. "I didn't mean anything by it, really. It just surprised me!"

The former maid paused her ritual, reached for the door and opened it slightly.

"Hi." Miyako guiltily waved from within the exposed crack.

Hisui gave her another smile.

"Gyah!"

Hisui fretted away long into the night.


	3. Chapter 3

Tsukihime is property of Type-Moon. Any additional references belong to their respective companies.

Chapter 3: Round Two...

* * *

"What are you going to do tomorrow?"

"I'm not sure."

"Uhm, well, why don't we watch a movie at my place? I rented this cool looking thing at the commisary. What? Why are you looking at me like that?"

"Heh. Why not?"

"I-I didn't mean it that way..."

Hisui tried to ignore the pair of boys behind her, although her attention certainly was piqued. The ex-maid was now trying to copy some notes that she had bummed off of Sayoko. Hisui still wondered why the girl seemed so standoffish, she was certainly a good person towards her.

She flipped the page over, and realized Sayoko had mixed some of her math notes in with history.

The redhead paused her scribbling, staring at the mathematical formula on the sheet with a worried look. Her eyes crossed a little as she tried to get a handle of the word problem written down in there. She quickly flipped that page face down on the table. For good measure, she pushed further away with her mechanical pencil.

The front door to the lecture hall opened, letting in a haggard looking Ms. Gima. Her frizzy hair was even more poofy than usual as she tugged on her skirt to straighten it. As far as the Tohno heiress had seen, Tomoko Gima had never been late, or at least she had never run late for any of her classes. Hisui hoped she hadn't run into the wandering photocopier, that thing always had a taste for women, and was particularly insistent if it took a fancy to someone.

The murmuring died down as she looked up at them, finally with a look resembling an adults.

"I'm sorry I'm so late, class." Ms. Gima set her bags down. "Thanks for not ditching on me, wouldn't have been worth it to smash school property otherwise."

A good amount of the class smiled at the thought, while Hisui and a few others nodded - guess they didn't have to worry about looking over their backs at night now.

"I'll make it short, since you've all been such good, serious kids." Their homeroom teacher clapped her hands, silencing them utterly. "I just want to remind you that we'll be doing our quarterly biorthymns next week."

A chorus of groans answered.

"Yes, yes, I know you're all young, invincible, would-be light novel protagonists in your own minds." Their teacher dismissively brushed off their complaints. "But just humor us old people, and we'll not bother you for a few months."

The bell went off at the end of her spiel, causing the students to look pointedly at her.

"Go!" She smiled, brushing them off. "I release you back unto the wild."

Miyako wandered into the room, and waved at Hisui.

The redhead smiled and energetically waved back, ducking her head a little shyly when her neighbors looked over at her. Hisui quickly stacked up her papers and stuffed them and her books away before bounding down the stairs towards the bottom of the lecture hallway. The former maid caught a snippet of dialogue as she retreated.

"That was Tohno, right?" One of the boys that had been behind her asked the other. "More calm than I expected of that family."

"Well, sorta. She married into the family. I guess."

"Juicy."

"Ah, are you alright, sensei?" Miyako was in the midst of a conversation with the teacher. "Sorry I couldn't get there in time."

Ms. Gima's hands started insinctively moving towards her hips.

"T-that's fine, Arima." She stuttered, jerking in place to stop herself. "Ah, Ms. Tohno is here, I'll leave you both to your devices."

Hisui held a hand up, catching her teacher's attention before she wandered off.

"Yes?"

"About the exercises..." Hisui began, but a figurative lightbulb went off behind her teacher's eyes. The older woman awkwardly brought a finger up to her forehead. Whatever she was thinking about must've been troubling, it stormed across her features pretty readily.

Miyako hopped in between both women.

"Hey, Hisui, she's gone through a little trau-"

"We'll schedule a meeting." Ms. Gima smiled at them, but it was a little forced. "I'll send you an email later tonight, but I'll definitely tell you what to expect for the territorials, okay?"

Hisui felt a little bad for causing the discomfort, but nodded silent agreement.

Ms. Gima wandered off, muttering something dire about electronics beneath her breath, and leaving both of the Tohno girls in a rapidly emptying room.

"Hm." Miyako stared up at Hisui, big brown eyes searching for something.

"What is it?" Hisui asked.

"I'm not sure." The younger girl dismissed the conversation. "Anyway, let's go, they managed to score hot pots for us!"

Hisui made a face, and nervously began to rub her case's handle. Her younger relative had to grab her by the front of her uniform and start tugging them towards the cafeteria. Even the attempt to slow them by digging her heels in did little to dissuade her cousin.

"But-" She tried to utter her worries. "It's a hot pot."

"Meat." Miyako denied her. "Real meat."

"There's..."

"You can't mess up a hot pot, Hisui." Miyako brutally got to the heart of the matter. "Not even you, no matter how much you suck!"

That was...!

* * *

This month's hot pot night was a runaway success, as usual. They were packed in like sardines; rows of students squeezing past each other, taking a seat at the long tables that had been specifically dragged up from the bowels of the school for tonight. Extra chairs had been specially ordered this year, since the janitors were sick and tired of having to move the aluminum seats from the gym to the cafeteria and back within the span of a few hours every month.

Hisui and Miyako had been fortunate enough to get there early, as neither girl had a club to go to after class. There was still plenty of competition, though. Many people had jockeyed for position in the hallways, just on the right side of the law as they power jogged past the slower students. Hisui didn't even want to know why Miyako had slipped a baseball to her friend Chiyo when they had entered the cafeteria, or why both girls had allowed a slimy expression to pass between the two.

"Hot pot is civilizaaaation!" Hisui cheered, pumping her fists.

Miyako nodded next to her, humming around a piece of chicken she was eating with an expression that should've been reserved for religious experiences. Or that one time that Shiki and her were - nevermind. Back to Miyako, she was now attempting to gum to it to oblivion, with how she was eating it so oddly. Who ran their lips up and down their food like that while eating it?

The girl sitting in that dangerous spot between Miyako and more food spoke.

"I'm sorry," Chiyo said, putting down her utensils for a second. "I've attempted to civilize my friend, I really have..."

Miyako jabbed her friend on the bicep, causing her to wince.

"I'm not a dog." Hisui's cousin retorted. "You can't train me with food."

Chiyo raised a finger.

"That was just a fluke." Miyako hurriedly shut the conversation down. "Now Hisui, do you see what I meant?"

Hisui nodded twice, reached over towards the pot in front of Chiyo, and took out some vegetables.

"It must be expensive." The redhead mused. "Will it be okay?"

"Please, the organization takes care of everything, and I don't think they would want their kids going hungry. In fact, they should definitely feed us better throughout the month. What's up with this joke? Hot pot once a month? Give me it three times a week! Minimum!" Chiyo shrugged, snapping up a piece of celery and mumbling around it at the end.

Miyako made a face.

"Porky is right." Miyako agreed, causing a murmured complaint from Chiyo.

"Oh..." Hisui suddenly looked a little crestfallen. "But I'm not-"

Miyako laughed, took Hisui's dish over her protests, and slapped some more meat on it.

"None of that, now." Miyako shoved the plate into her unresponsive hands, forcing the older girl to take it. "Big brother is one of the most important members of the organization and you're his wife."

"Ignoring Arima's moment of biased thinking-"

"Hey..."

"-that's almost like being a princess."

Chiyo pressed her palm against Miyako's face, pushing her away.

"We're not going to judge from whatever you are or did. We'd be eating more rice and less meat if that was the case. Thank god we've got Europeans here-"

Miyako was nodding along, and both summed up and shut up her friend's blabbing about the glorious western powers.

"Anyways, keep the pity party invitations to yourself, just deal and eat."

Damn, Miyako thought, be a little more patriotic, Chiyo. They were the reason Japan was having such a rough go of things. Also why she was going to have to have three kids to help fix everything.

Now, if only she could put big brother's name in theirs without making it too obvious...

Hisui frowned. She wasn't going to sulk. The redhead jabbed at her meat a little harder, yelping as she got some juice on her face.

Miyako and her friend exchanged looks.

"Well, maybe a noble in training." One said.

"Definitely." The other agreed.

They continued to eat in relatively comfortable silence.

"By the way," Hisui realized something important. "This is kind of rude, but..."

She stared over at Chiyo, and the girl pointed at herself with a utensil.

"Mmm?"

Incredibly important.

"Who are you?" Hisui smiled beatifically.

Miyako managed to cover her mouth with a napkin, but a strain piece bounced off Chiyo's thunderstruck expression.

Hisui tilted her head, confused.

"Life is confusing outside the mansion." She muttered.

Miyako silently tapped the table with her tiny fists over and over again, silently shaking in place as she fought back her laughter.

* * *

"So upperclassman Ah was finally suspended for attacking Jui-En a week ago." Chiyo chatted, taking a few licks of a popsicle she had snuck into the cafeteria. "He'll be out of the campus in a few days."

"Really?" Miyako lightly kicked her feet back and forth. "That's news for me."

Dinner came and went, but Miyako was still eagerly chatting with her Chiyo.

"Well, that's cuz you hardly ever listen..."

"Hahah, that's because that'd just encourage you to be more of a gossip, Chiyo!"

"Tch," Chiyo refused the attempt at a consoling hug that Miyako reached in to give. "Why do you care about this guy, then? Got a crush on him? Want me to get you his room so you can sneak in and bang before he leaves the campus?"

"D-don't be so gross!" Miyako shrieked, shaking her head and covering her ears. "It's just...Ah seems like a sweet guy...he even tried to convince me to go to the martial arts club."

"Well, don't tell me, Jui-En had lots of people backing him up."

Miyako's expression darkened.

"That's just groupies." She scoffed. "Shallow lot of them would throw themselves off a cliff if he said so..."

Hisui had tried her best to pay attention, but she drifted away. There were just too many names she didn't recognize and events she hadn't been around to see. The older girl tapped her chin, resting her cheek against her palm while she zoned out.

Miyako looked so happy right now, she was pantomining something to her friend with her whole body. Hisui looked past her giggling cousin, looking for a familiar face in the crowds. Three tables down, she caught Sayoko Mihara skittering away, awkwardly holding a pair of trays in her arms.

How curious, where was the girl was going?

Hisui muttered some made-up excuse, something about getting some more water that sounded sketchy, but was accepted by the chatty younger girls. She stood up, dusted her skirt, and trotted away. Outside of a few stragglers like their group, only the cleaning staff was present in the cafeteria, and that sort of made her feel awkward about things.

"Hello." Hisui greeted Sayoko. "Need any help?"

Sayoko looked up at Hisui from where she was bent over a table and wiping it down. The girl was wearing a checkered apron over some casual clothes and had her long hair in a bun covered by a bandanda. Some of the strands of the other girl's hair fell out of the neat bun when she looked up from her rough wiping and towards Hisui.

"Tohno?" She blinked, and swiped the hair out of her face. "Why're you lingering about?"

Hisui pointed over at her cousin.

"Ah." Sayoko nodded, and a she smiled a little. "I wouldn't mind some company."

"Okay." Hisui grunted, thinking about dirty that table looked, but decided to take a spot nearby.

Sayoko smirked.

"What? Trying to take my job? Sorry, but I gotta do this to pay for my meals."

Hisui's hand rose to her mouth.

"I'm sorry..."

Sayoko shrugged, dipped the rag she was using in a small bucket, and wringed it out.

"Eh, I'm not, you shouldn't be." She grabbed a spray can and liberally hosed down another section of the table. "It keeps me honest and stuff."

Hisui's shoulders relaxed a little. She eagerly nodded along with Sayoko. Yeah, a little work was fine, wasn't it?

"Anyway, you don't really look like you're pitying me. So, whatcha doing over here? Got some weird hobbies? Or you just a neat freak, Tohno?"

"Uh," Hisui decided to not give her opinion on the poor way Sayoko was swiping against the grain. "I wanted to thank you for the notes."

"Well, that's fine, I wanted to pay you back for not being a snitch about me freaking out the other day."

Hisui touched her cheeks. She wasn't scary. Everyone gave her discounts back home, she was a mascot!

"-That doesn't mean I'll go easy on you. Especially since you got me that one time. I'm gonna have to beat ya when we get the assessments done, just to show you I'm not so easily spooked by a manifestation of your power." Sayoko was saying, snapping into her thoughts.

"About that..." Hisui started. "My teacher was going to explain it to me, but can you tell me a little?"

Both girls walked over to the other side of the table.

"Huh? Oh, sure. I don't mind." Sayoko swung her legs around and took a wide legged stance on the bench. "I can give you the basics, probably better than the teachers, lazy lot."

She looked away for a second, trying to order her thoughts.

Hisui glanced around, but no one was looking. She plucked the rag where Sayoko dropped it and took a seat. The redhead started swiping at the table a little, smiling at the familiar motion.

Sayoko snapped her fingers, startling Hisui.

"Okay." Sayoko nodded to herself. "We're abominations against man and nature."

"What?"

Sayoko grinned and crossed her arms.

"In short, you are the bump in the night!"

Hisui leaned away, eyes wide.

Wasn't that an old Disney cartoon? Wait, there was no time to think about that.

"That's mean!" The redhead muttered, thinking about why she'd be called such a thing. "I only licked his recorder that one time."

"That's..." Sayoko got back to her feet. "...not what I meant, but okay."

"A-ah..." Hisui fidgetted.

"Deep within our souls, we've got a primal connection to things that walked around way before people showed up, and that side of us hates everything that's human." The dark haired girl snagged the cleaning rag from Hisui and went back to cleaning the table. "We get all sorts of amazing abilities because of that, but you know..."

Hisui blinked as she listened attentively as Sayoko rambled onwards. So, this was about half bloods?

Shiki had told her she should do her best to play along. Vaguely, it made her feel like one of those superheroines with a secret identity. The comparison with that old cartoon was pretty apt now.

"So our demon sides give us powers, basically. The school tries to see if we're safe to go back into human society. If we pass all these sort of assessments, back we go. But if we don't..."

"And if not..." Hisui trailed off while reaching towards her neck and made a slicing motion.

"We..." Sayoko simultaneous continued, nodding back and overdramatically rolling her eyes into the back of her head. "We'll get held back from graduation."

Both girls traded looks and then started laughing.

* * *

"Hm?" Miyako looked up from where she was getting her hair played with by Chiyo. "Oh, do you wanna go back to our room now, Hisui?"

Chiyo grunted around the scrunchie she had in her mouth, looking annoyed as she tried to gather up Miyako's hair.

"No, it's fine." Hisui was next to Sayoko, both of them standing over the two younger girls. "Sayoko was going to show me around."

Miyako looked a little hesistant, but let out a shriek of pain as her head was tugged back. At the same time, her friend leaned her head towards Hisui, surprising her. Chiyo grinned and waved a hand at the two older girls, ignoring Miyako's struggles.

"Go ahead, senpai." She leaned to the side, avoiding a strike. "We'll just stay here."

That sounded convicing.

Hisui felt a tug on her arm.

"C'mon, Tohno," Sayoko promised. "They're getting along like a house on fire."

Sayoko started walking away, balling up her hair net and stuffing it into her pocket.

"Wait!" Miyako blurted, but Chiyo pressed herself against the smaller girl, muffling her complaints.

"Miss Tohno," Chiyo said seriously. "Being a third wheel probably isn't any fun, right?"

Hisui and Chiyo exchanged a silent look, mutual understanding flashing between them. The redhead glanced at Miyako one more time before trotting after Sayoko. She made sure to call out before she left the cafeteria.

"I'll be back in an hour!" Hisui shouted back before leaving.

Miyako finally shrugged off Chiyo's hold, throwing the bigger girl's arms off her with a bark. She greedily gulped in air, glaring at her friend with flinty eyes. She was about to get to her feet, to follow after Hisui, but Chiyo grabbed her hands with hers.

"Let her go, Miyako." Chiyo said.

"What?" She sounded offended. "No, big brother asked me..."

"He isn't here." Chiyo continued patiently. "You can't keep doing that to her."

Miyako blinked, not understanding.

"She needs friends." Chiyo declared.

Miyako sputtered.

"You're her family and that's great too," Chiyo said. "But we're both kids compared to her. She needs to know people that are her equal at school too. You can't let her hide in your shadow all the time."

Miyako looked down, and kicked at an imaginary dust of dirt on the ground.

"You won't let down your big brother. I bet he sent her here to make all kinds of friends too. Why else come to school, right?" Chiyo's assurance made Miyako look at her. "What? I know you care a lot about him. I'm your friend, after all!" She laughed.

Miyako smiled a little.

"I hope she doesn't get such a meddler for a friend, then." The brunette finally said.

"Hmm, yeah, she's the type to get pushed arou-" Chiyo was in the middle of agreeing when her brain clicked. "Hey! What the hell, Arima?! I'm not a meddler!"

Miyako smiled and leaned back as Chiyo angrily vented, having gotten even for the hair pulling.

* * *

Hisui was lead towards a brown brick building by Sayoko. There were a few interesting things about it, foremost was that there was a large glass dome cap over the building. Secondly, the very tip of another building could be seen through the dome.

"Is that a tower?" Hisui wondered.

Sayoko nodded, smiling as she lead them off the paved path and through the grass. They reached a set of heavy black iron doors. She reached for one of them and casually yanked it open, despite being only a tenth the door's size.

"This is one of the school's claims to fame." Sayoko explained, walking besides Hisui as they entered. "The Astrology Tower was built about eighty years ago..."

She trailed off deliberately, to let Hisui take it in.

Hisui had been right, but there was more than she expected. The interior was like one of those biodomes she had heard about once. Or maybe a geofront? Geofronts were a kind of building, right? It was warmer in here than outside, and plenty of plants grew all along the interior. Vines grew up the walls, steadily reaching up towards the glass cap that was set over the whole affair. It even smelled cleaner in here, probably because of the plants.

The redhead walked away from Sayoko and stared at one of the vines.

"What is it?" Sayoko wondered.

"The Tohno home has plants like these." She pointed at the climbers. "My sister tells me that they were a hassle to take care of all the time."

"Oh, you have a sister?" Sayoko smiled, thinking about her own.

Hisui blinked, shaken out of her musing while she looked at the built in plant pots on the brick wall. She looked over her shoulder at Sayoko, lips curled down a little. The former maid silently chided herself, now she was going to look like a fool, or worse.

"Her name was Kohaku." She said, like ripping off a bandaid. "She's gone now."

"Oh..." Sayoko's face fell.

"Sorry." Hisui apologized, cursing herself for ruining the mood. "Maybe I should just go-"

Sayoko reached out and grabbed Hisui's arm, shaking her head.

"No way, Tohno." She dismissed the thought with a shake of her head. "I said I'm showing you the Tower, and I mean it."

Hisui was pulled towards the central building.

"Thank you." Hisui murmured, glancing down through her eyelashes.

"A teacher takes care of the plants, by the way." Sayoko kept speaking, acknowledging Hisui's thanks only with a nod. "She used to study here too and then she came back to take care of the plants here."

A bronzed set of doors were at the base of the tower, but Sayoko led them past them and around the building. A few windows were down on the ground floor, with some others higher up, but they were all dark at this time of the night. Maybe they were classes? Hisui wasn't very sure. What was certain was that there was a metal staircase on the east side of the tower, and Sayoko was walking up it without a care.

"Are we going up?" Hisui asked breathily, baffled at what was going on.

"Yeah. If you like how the place looks from down below, up top it's even better. C'mon, Tohno."

Hisui shivered as they ascended, holding onto the railing tightly once they ascended the third floor. It wasn't helping her that the staircase rattled whenever they stepped on it together. She occasionally glanced downwards, which only fed into the negative loop. Why did they have to go up so high? It was way too tall to be walking up on a staircase. People weren't meant to be up so high. If they were supposed to be in the skies, they would be birds.

And what the heck was that droning noise? It was steadily increasing in volume.

"So the tower was renovated about twenty years ago," Sayoko was casually saying, not at all affected by the height. "The school invited some pretty infamous magus back in the day to play with the instruments up top."

"W-why?" Hisui's teeth chattered a little. "Didn't they force them make an elevator with their magic?"

Sayoko glanced back at Hisui.

"Well, they were good at time magic, so they wanted to improve the recording devices up top..."

They stepped out onto the peak of the tower, startling a cluster of birds that had been idling and pecking at some potted plants drapped along the edges of the roof. Both young women followed the flock of birds away with their gaze, losing them as the light of the moon got in their eyes. Both of them walked towards the center, one with far more gratitude than the other, and turned towards the source of the noise.

A bronze gyroscope appeared before them, resting in a sitting area with several seats arrayed around it. The gyroscope was definitely the source of the wobbling noise that Hisui had heard on the way up. The redhead raised a hand, drawing Sayoko's attention away from the device.

"May I ask what that device does?"

"Don't be so formal, Tohno. It's the recording thing I mentioned. That magic I mentioned? It's going to play a condensed version of history for us!" Sayoko replied, and gestured at the seats. A few of them were actually taken by students, now that Hisui's attention was redirected. She saw some of the teachers fiddling with the gyroscope, too.

"Huh." Hisui grunted. "That sounds interesting."

Horror dawned on her face when she realized that inelegant noise had come out of her own throat.

'Please don't notice, please don't notice, please don't notice...' Hisui crossed her fingers.

"Oho." Sayoko smirked. "Thanks for captiulating so quickly!"

"Fudgenuggets." Hisui finished her thought outloud, slumping her shoulders in defeat. "Let's just grab our seats!"

The redhead almost huffily stormed away before Sayoko's grin.

"Tohno's pretty fun." The girl murmured, smile fading a little. "I hope she gets along with senpai."

Jui-En had made her promise to get him in contact with Hisui after he had found out about their relationship, such as it was. Sayoko had tried her best to dissuade the upperclassman, but Jui-En got what Jui-En wanted. Thinking about the older male caused Sayoko to rub at her wrists nervously. Fortunately, things were looking pretty good.

She'd bring Hisui to him soon.

* * *

The internal mechanisms, some greased up large wheels from the look of it, started rolling. Hisui felt a slight rumble beneath her feet. Were there more mechanisms at play? Questions for another time, because she was distracted by the massive gyroscope itself. The device was clicking, making her feel nervous.

Maybe it was her slippery fingered history with things back in the mansion, but she actually started looking around when the gyroscopes and rotating rings starting emitting a gentle sounding whirling.

Sayoko was sipping a water bottle she had taken out of her purse.

No one was panicking or blaming her, so it seemed to be standard for this machine, thankfully. The device had another surprise in it, as several lights that were set around the roof went off. Only blood red lights designating the edges of the roof remained active, as a safety precaution.

The tower's distance from the rest of the campus finally made sense; you could see the night sky clearly once your eyes got used to the darkness.

'The moon is so beautiful tonight, Shiki.' She thought, getting a clear look of the skies through the dome. 'I wonder if you're looking at the same sky as I am?'

The gyroscope made several clicks; rods jutted out of the frame and their tips blinked at them with blue light.

The pulsing drew the eye, and the pattern changed - speeding up and down at random times.

Hisui's eyes started to grow heavy...

"Here it comes!" Sayoko blurted next to her, grabbing the top of Hisui's arm.

The redhead's sleepiness was blown away.

A solitary golden flash flew heavenward, erupting into a wave of electricity that swept across the skies. Murmurs of shock rose up from younger students, Hisui one of them. The outlines of the stars grew hazy, and several people jumped up in their seats as they moved towards the east! The skies were moving? Hisui felt Sayoko's steely grip on her arm, keeping her from joining the standing students.

"It's not the end of the world." Sayoko assured her, bringing her heartbeat down. "This is the magic, what I told you about."

The blurs turned into streaks, and night became day simply as the sky itself became a patchwork of shining silver beams of light. The younger students and old were mesmerized. Hisui had her heart in her throat, and found it hard to swallow as the moon faded in and out as it joined them, urged onwards by the playful stars dancing in and out of reach of the satellite.

"These are the past thirty years." Sayoko said. "Recorded by the device for us to see."

The heiress stared up at the highway of light, a cosmos of lights sweeping across her vision.

"It's beautiful." Hisui breathed. "Who made this?"

Sayoko let go of Hisui's arm when she felt the redhead settle back into her seat.

"A Mr. Emiya, he worked with the staff on this device, using some sort of time method?" Sayoko shrugged, as if she was remembering something she read once. "He helped the school set up many of the things it uses to make sure we're all healthy to this day."

Hisui looked over towards Sayoko.

"Thank you for sharing this with me."

"Yeah." Sayoko said, voice oddly thick.

Hisui's gaze fell, and she reached for the other girl.

"Are you okay?" She asked.

Sayoko blinked hard, turning her face half away from Hisui.

"Oh, don't mind me, I'm just being silly." She tried to laugh, but it came out warbly. "This just gives me a little perspective about life, is all."

Something about Sayoko's tone made a faint memory stir in Hisui's chest.

'Hisui-chan,' Kohaku's voice drifted into her thoughts. 'Have you ever thought about what'd you like to do later in life?'

She thought it had gone that way.

A door opened sometime, Hisui thought.

'Excuse me.' Lady Akiha's voice was as straightlaced as ever, but there was a hint of offense. Or was there? Was it a glare? Hands on her hips? 'What is an employer supposed to think when their workers are casually speaking about future prospects *while still working for them*?'

A guilty laugh, maybe awkward shuffling?

'High treason!' Kohaku had laughed then, taking Hisui's hands and running away with her. 'Run, run, or Lady Akiha will make us walk off the plank, oh no!'

Impressions of clothes fluttering, was Lady Akiha sputtering or was it her, and then the twins were racing through the hallways.

Running.

Running...

Where did they run?

Had Lady Akiha followed?

The memory faded.

Hisui was left staring up at the sky with wide eyes, which watered at the edges.

Hisui brought a hand to her hand with a gasp, and felt her heart painfully skip in her chest as it and her personal time came to a dead stop. Her blood thickened in her ears and the blood in her veins went cold. How old was the memory? She tried her best to remember. A year ago? Six months ago? Was Lady Akiha wearing her new uniform or was she just dressed like she did at home?

She...couldn't remember.

Not well enough.

She began to shiver in her seat.

Time, Hisui suddenly realized, was cruel.

"Shiki..." She entreated the heavens. "They're never coming back, are they?"


	4. Chapter 4

Tsukihime is property of Type-Moon. Any additional references belong to their respective companies.

Chapter 4: ...Fight! 

* * *

Students flowed away from the base of the Astronomy Tower, walking around Hisui and Sayoko. Their excited chattering drifted in and out of the two young women's ears. Both of them were too busy nursing their own thoughts, leaning up against the wall.

"I'm sorry," Sayoko apologized for the fifth time.

Hisui smiled at her, limply shaking her hand.

"It's fine," Hisui said. "That was my fault."

The redhead tugged at her collar, trying to cool herself. She was embarrassed to admit that she had a breakdown. The only thing she could do was just try and sweep it under the rug.

Sayoko shifted in place.

She wanted to give Hisui an out - say that if the redhead wanted, they could wait another day, and meet in a more convenient place, but...

"Is that right?" She uneasily asked. "Are you thirsty? How about I treat you? I've got some sodas in my club room."

"Aren't the rooms locked?" Hisui asked, groggily rubbing her cheek. "Would you terribly mind if we did this another day?"

"It's on the way to the dorms." Sayoko blurted. She resisted the urge to take Hisui's hands. That would be too weird. "Besides, I have the keys so we'd just duck in and out."

Hisui was too tired to notice the way the other girl tensed.

"Oh. You wanted me to meet your friends, right?" Hisui suddenly recalled, face flushed. "I almost forgot - my apologies."

"You don't need to apologize," Sayoko said, shaking her head. "Even if it's totally your fault, it's not a problem."

Hisui weakly smiled. By now she was aware that Sayoko didn't mean anything by it, but she wondered if the girl wouldn't benefit from a class on public speaking or something. 

* * *

Hisui stood between a beaming Sayoko and an otherwise unremarkable door. A sheet of paper was tapped onto the oak surface. It depicted a stick figure flinging another one over their shoulder and into... a volcano?

"Nice, isn't it?" Sayoko asked, yipping like a puppy. "It shows off the essence of Judo well, right?"

"This is Judo?"

"Yeah. Been a member all my years. Practiced it growing up - my parents paid for a lot of lessons." Sayoko grew contemplative. "My parents always said it'd be especially important for me to know how to defend myself, but I never figured out why."

Hisui blinked.

"Ah. Your parents truly love you."

Sayoko pouted.

"Everyone always says that..."

Hisui stepped aside, letting Sayoko get at the door.

"Why'd you have a sword that day?" Hisui asked. Well, it was more like a practice sword. "Does the club practice with them?"

Sayoko laughed, opening the door.

"That's just my hobby!" She said while practically flouncing inside.

The redhead was sedate in comparison.

"It sounds like a dangerous hobby." Hisui chided. "People without experience shouldn't play around with swords."

"I'm back!" Sayoko ignored her, practically nuzzling the boy waiting for them inside the room. "Did you miss me, Jui-En?"

Hisui's mind pinged as the name slowly dredged itself from the depths of her memories, where had she heard that name before?

The older boy had his leg propped up against a pile of mats. He looked like he was trying to take on the airs of a king, but it wasn't quite meshing with his appearance. His uniform was slightly ruffled and he was leaned back against his chair as he watch them with a hawkish gaze.

Hisui didn't regard herself as an authority on male attractiveness, but she supposed that somebody like Sayoko would find Jui-En attractive. Given the girl's very obvious response to the guy, in any case.

"Mistress Tohno," said the boy, "I am Jui-En." 

* * *

Hisui twisted her lip slightly. She wasn't sure if she liked the way he said 'Mistress.' It sounded dirty, somehow, as if he was calling her a woman of the night.

Jui-En rose up from his self-made throne, and brushed past Sayoko, causing the girl to stumble a bit with the motion.

"You won't believe the efforts my family has gone through to reach you and your husband," He continued, taking her hand and bending theatrically to kiss it. "That man of yours is a hard person to find."

Hisui tried to tug her hand free, but his grip was firm.

Jui-en refused to release her hand, neither noticing nor seeming to care, choosing to glance over at Sayoko and forcing Hisui to turn along with him.

"Sayoko," He spoke at her. "The young Mistress Tohno seems parched."

Sayoko started to smile.

"Yes, I was going to get her a-"

The older boy kept talking through her.

"Get her a drink," Jui-En turned away from her stuttered affirmation to smile down at Hisui. "My apologies."

He walked them over towards some desks in the corner. They were pushed together into a makeshift table, away from Sayoko. The girl was looking through a grey steel supply closet on the other side of the room.

"She didn't do anything wrong," Hisui said, thrown off by how quickly everything was moving.

"Hm? Oh, she didn't? That's refreshing," He dully said, offering her a seat and pushing her into place.

Hisui frowned, both his words and the bite of the table's edge against her.

The boy took a spot directly across from her, at the head of the table. He pushed aside some folders and markers off his side of the table dismissively, sweeping them off onto another chair. Some stationary spilled onto the floor, but he didn't seem to particularly mind as he kept an intense look on her face.

"How are you enjoying our school, Mistress Tohno?" He asked.

"It's nice," She blandly answered.

"Indeed," He responded. "This is the place for us."

"Pardon?" She blinked.

"Here," He gestured at their surroundings. "Amongst our own kind."

Hisui felt a hint of pressure in between her shoulders when she saw a queer gleam enter his eyes.

"Of course." Hisui broke their gaze, catching something besides a wall scroll. "That's..."

"Hm?" Jui-En followed her gaze as well.

A picture of Sayoko and four other girls was nailed up on the wall. There was a little bronze plaque set on the base of the frame. The lights were too dim to make out the details, but she could tell there were no men.

"Interesting," The redhead concluded.

"Taken before my time," He smiled. "Now, the reason I came to talk with you..."

"My husband deals with matters of the Tohno household." Hisui gave him a canned answer. "I'm simply here to finish my education, nothing more."

Jui-En leaned forwards.

"Surely you must have contact with him?" He asked, an edge in his tone. He must have realized how he sounded, because he backed into his seat. "I mean, it would be madness for a man to leave a beauty such as yourself alone. I wouldn't trust this beastly world to treat a beauty like yourself delicately."

Hisui quirked her head.

"Shiki trusts me." She translated what he said and spat it back at him. "He chose to let me come alone."

Jui-En scrambled to backtrack.

"Ah, what of...?" He stumbled. "Oh, what is that thin blood's name?"

"Miyako." She narrowed her eyes. "My little sister."

"...Miyako, yes." He let the words thud onto the ground uselessly. "She's the reason my father needed to speak to Master Tohno..."

"I see neither here."

"Right," Jui-En ran a hand through his slicked hair. "Which is why I must speak to you. I must speak to you of a looming threat. One large enough that your husband, despite his profound trust, assigned Miyako to watch over you..."

"I've got our drinks!" Sayoko walked towards them, arms laden with soda. "I didn't know what you wanted, so I brought a few if that's okay."

"Don't interrupt!" He glared up at her, nostrils flaring.

"H-huh?" Sayoko flinched, stepping over to the left, towards his side of the table. "What'd I do?"

Her heel caught onto some of the markers that had rolled off the table, sending her leg flying up and smacking him in the shin.

A pregnant silence descended on the room. He flowed up onto his feet, clenching his fist. She closed her eyes, letting go of the soda.

She joined them on the ground shortly after.

One of them popped open as her body weight fell on top of it.

Hisui threw herself onto her knees.

"What do you think you're doing?!" She shrieked, glaring up into his quivering eyes from where she craddled Sayoko's head. "Sayoko didn't mean to do that!"

Jui-En lowered his fist, but kept it clenched.

"Apologize to Mistress Tohno," He hissed down at Sayoko, ignoring Hisui. "You're making a scene."

Sayoko flinched at the guttural tone, but her eyes were still glazed in shock.

"You stupid little..." Jui-En stepped forwards.

Sayoko curled around Hisui, covering her face with her hands. Hisui wrapped an arm around the other girl, pulling her in close. The other jabbed towards the older man.

"Stop!" Hisui commanded.

Jui-En froze, realization dawning on him.

"Wait!" He exclaimed.

"We're leaving," Hisui pulled herself and Sayoko up to their feet, ignoring the sticky sugar clinging onto their skirts and stockings. The redhead's eyes filled with pity as she spotted Sayoko still clinging to one last can of soda.

"It's okay, it's alright," Sayoko offered the can to Hisui. "Okay?"

"Come on, Sayoko," Hisui shut her down. "This isn't fine."

Sayoko groggily looked up at her friend's smile, and mechanically placed one foot in front of the other.

"No?" Her face fell.

Jui-En slid across the table and bounced in front of Hisui, throwing his arms out and blocking her.

"Wait, dammit!" He demanded. "What are you doing?"

"I'm leaving- With my friend." Hisui bared her teeth. "Unless there's a problem I need to tell my husband about?"

His lips twisted into an ugly pout, nose twitching.

"No..." He stepped aside.

Hisui huffed, pulling at Sayoko and carrying more of her weight. Sayoko moaned something, leaning her head against the crook of Hisui's shoulder. The redhead visibly struggled, but silently bore both of them towards the divide.

"Good night, Mistress Tohno."

Hisui flashed him a glacial look, colder than anything his father had ever given him.

"Goodbye," She stumbled out with her friend.

Jui-En closed his eyes.

"Goodbye." 

* * *

Hisui entered her room, glancing out the large window on the back wall.

She didn't see Miyako out in the courtyard.

"I'm sorry," She apologized to Sayoko. "There was a line in the break room."

Hisui handed Miyako's ceramic mug over to her. It was the largest cup they had in the room. The younger girl loved to fill it up with hot chocolate or other treats and sneak it into their room.

It should be enough water to wash down the medication she was going to give her friend.

"You didn't have to worry about me," She answered, accepting Hisui's reason. "The school is always dragging their feet about running clean water to our bedrooms."

Sayoko's fingers traced the image of a dancing playtpus in her hands.

Hisui leaned over their small study table to reach a shelf. Some sports magazines with half dressed men she didn't care to know shifted, nearly falling off the table along with her own study materials. The redhead made a note to tell Miyako to put her things away better.

Then she saw one of the books and winced.

And made sure to return those other notes back to her classmates later.

She swept her eyes across the comprehensive set of medicine inside the drawer. Hisui had unfortunately grown very used to making sure she knew her way around medicine, Shiki was starting to see their doctor more. Her eyes caught the white cap of the bottle she was looking for and took it out.

She silently handed her friend some aspirin, sitting down next to her. The redhead's bed squeaked a little under their weight. Darn mattress never was right after Miyako bounced on it a few weeks ago.

"You're getting fat." Sayoko accused, taking the pill with some clean tasting water. "Work out more."

Hisui sighed.

"Are we going to talk about what happened?" The smaller girl looked up into her friend's eyes. "Or are we just going to look outside the rest of the night?"

Sayoko's fingertips danced along the ruffles of the bed covers.

"I messed up," She said, staring past the reflected image of her swelled cheek. "You shouldn't get mad with Jui-En."

Hisui's cool expression made her opinion on that well known.

"I remember him now," The redhead said. "Wasn't he involved with a boy that was thrown out of school for fighting?"

Sayoko knew what Hisui was implying.

"He didn't do anything," She defended him. "You have the wrong idea about him!"

Hisui hummed.

"Jui-En has been tense lately," Sayoko tightened her grip on the mug. "Then I heard him mention the Tohno."

"Shiki?" Hisui asked. "So he made you bring me to him?"

Sayoko emphatically shook her head.

"No, I'm the one that that arranged everything. I didn't want him to look worried anymore. Can't you please go back and talk to him? He's not a bad person, I swear."

She finished, clutching at Hisui's sleeve.

It was possible, Hisui supposed, that she was being unfair to Jui-En - that the terrible first impression he'd made on her owed entirely to acute stress or extenuating circumstances she wasn't aware of.

That, however, didn't give him any excuse to be a brute to his closer acquaintances.

"What's that?" Sayoko perked up.

Hisui started at the noise of her neighbors yelling down the hallway. That was odd; they were usually polite enough to disagree with each other quietly. Barring Miyako's occasional fits of melodrama, shouting matches simply didn't happen.

Sayoko unsteadily stood up, but she caught something moving outside.

"Oh, it looks like your cousin is back, Hisui."

Hisui joined Sayoko at the window.

Miyako was walking away from the black iron gate with her friend, both of them with smiles on their faces. They were taking their time walking up to the dorm, chatting with each other. Miyako even splashed Chiyo with some water from the fountain.

Hisui hoped Miyako didn't butt into whatever trouble was boiling over. It was just going to turn into a bigger mess, if it wasn't already - why did it sound like the voices were moving up and downstairs? Either way, Miyako was too nosy for her own good. Nosy, and too eager to solve everything with her fists.

The redhead moved up to the window, undoing the latch and leaning out to call down a warning to her cousin.

Miyako looked up, and her expression brightened.

"Oh, Hisui!" She hollered, hands around her mouth like a makeshift megaphone. "Did you have fun?"

Sayoko moved next to Hisui.

"She saw aerodynamic effects on a human body." She quipped softly, rubbing her cheek. "It was educational for the whole family."

Hisui gently nudged Sayoko in the stomach with her finger, shaking her head.

"Hisui?" Miyako asked again, embarrassing her friend with her volume. Her companion was looking around, pretending to not be with Miyako. The younger Arima looked overwhelmed from where Sayoko and Hisui stood. For some reason she was looking rapidly at them and then down at the lobby entrance below their window. "What's going on? Huh, wait, what's going on in the lobby? Wait, is Sayoko hurt?!"

Sayoko raised a hand to cover the purpling bruise on her cheek, surprised the young girl saw it from a floor down.

Hisui winced, that was something she'd wish Miyako hadn't spotted yet.

Chiyo, getting tired with Miyako's antics, crossed her arms and let her eyes wander.

"Don't be so tactless," She muttered.

It was only thanks to her inattention, brought by her capability to feel shame on behalf of her friend's naive actions, that she was looking in the opposite direction. Her keen senses of awareness, honed from perhaps a sad amount of gossipping, are what led her to shout and stumble to the west side of the courtyard.  
A monstrously large beetle, having ripped a hole the size of a tall man through the hedge walls which divided the girl's dorms from the rest of the campus, tore diagonally across the yard and straight towards Miyako's back.

"Watch o-"

The older girls needn't have bothered to shout.

Miyako leapt over the goring horn, arced her body over a glistening carapace reflecting her nonchalant face, and touched down on the formerly grassy surface of the ground. It was now very uneven, the beast having furrowed it asunder with its horn and insane charge. The beast dragged hooked talons across the ground, pivoting in place like a drifting racecar.

Miyako narrowed her eyes, lightly shifting in place.

The beast straightened, its silhoutte growing even larger.

"Miyako!" Hisui almost fell out the window, but she was pulled back by her friend.

The young girl was going to have to thank her once she took care of this trash.

"Kunimitsu Takahashi, you are not." Miyako raised her hand, beckonining the creature with as she bounced in place. "Bring it on, ugly." 

* * *

The battered girl found herself the stable one for once.

"Get out of the way!" Hisui practically bellowed in Sayoko's face. "I have to make sure Miyako is alright!"

She didn't particularly like it.

"You got flabby arms," Sayoko had her arms extended to her sides, making herself as large as a peacock. Or maybe a beluga whale. "And stick legs. You're not going out there. You'll die!"

Hisui was having none of it, pushing at Sayoko's arms down. She was only proving Sayoko's point by flailing at the more athletic girl. The redhead used her nails at one point.

Sayoko didn't hold it against her.

"She's my little sister!" She blurted, desperation edging into her voice. "Please!"

Sayoko stared back.

"Nope."

"Please..."

"I'm not letting you go out there. That's stupid. You can hate me, like Jui-En does, if it helps you."

Hisui's eyes started watering. She bumped Sayoko against the door. The shorter girl shook her head, staring at her taller friend's reddened arms.

"Miyako." She mumbled. "Not you too..."

Sayoko quietly stood and let Hisui rest against her chest.

Neither of the girls were in the right mental state to see the insect crawling up from lip of the window. 

* * *

A stone dashed across the surface of the beetle's carapace, wildly spinning off into the distance and breaking against the dorm's walls. The beetle came crashing down where Miyako had been standing, flailing about as it sent minced dirt and rocks into the air. Miyako skipped over to the other side of the creature, scooping up another rock and cracking it against the beetle's side.

"That's not doing anything!" Chiyo exclaimed from inside the bushes making up the walls of the courtyard. "You're just making it angrier!"

"You don't think I know that?" Miyako complained, swaying to avoid one of its willowy appendages as she retreated. "Tell me something useful or shaddup for a sec!"

Chiyo's hedge rustled angrily at Miyako, but no further input came from the scaredy cat's direction.

The grounds were a mess, a spiral drawn through the manecured lawn as Miyako lead the creature on a destructive path through the plaza and gardens. That was intentional on Miyako's part. She was deliberately leading it around its nose. She had to know if it was smart enough to switch tactics.

It hadn't so far. The monster plowed straight through the fountain in the center of the plaza. The bulk of her attacker was enough to tip over the statue of the dorm's first headmistress and founder, shattering it to pieces. So it wasn't clever, that was good.

Miyako rolled a beheading strike, noted the comparatively tiny 'legs' supporting its bulk, and out of the monster's personal space. She leapfrogged upwards like a gymnast over a vaulting horse when the beetle headbutted the space she was going to be. Unfortunately, it was strong.

"Tell me you have a plan, at least?!" Chiyo yelped, afraid for Miyako's sake.

"Probably!" The fighter breathlessly answered.

"That's not reassuring!" Her friend yelped.

Crackling, clicking noises came within the creature while countless legs dragged its bulk towards her. It was bullish, insisting on getting in Miyako's face. There was no good time to break away and catch her breath. It was a slog, a trial, something that would've killed an average person dozens of times over.

She needed a big stick.

"I'm going to trip it," Miyako eyed the creature, assessing the monster's mass. "Then beat the crap out of it!"

"That's stupid," Chiyo's voice gained a manic edge when she saw Miyako charge. "You're stupid!"

"It's all I got!" Miyako chirped. "So I gotta make it count!"

So she invested everything she had into a burst of athleticism that would leave her sore for the next few days.

Miyako felt her muscles burn when she leapt high overhead, descended hard on the ground, and dove towards the fountain. The beast made a racket of clicks as it raced after her. She slid forwards, sending dirt flying everywhere. The martial artist caught a hold of the leg of the broken statue, rolled onto her side, and scrambled away.

The beetle practically obliterated the base of the fountain, causing water to spray everywhere.

Its claws lashed out into the rapidly moistening ground, letting it spin back towards its target.

Miyako was standing behind it, holding the statue's leg like a baseball bat.

"Goal!"

The beetle's mandibles twitched.

Miyako's swing ripped its legs off its body, sending them flying away.

The torso flopped down to the ground, almost catching her in the process. It angrily wiggled in place, helpless before the girl. More and more clicking rose from its depths, growing frantic as its motions just covered it with grass. Its arms splayed out, stiffening from shock while digging shallow furrows in the dirt.

Miyako's moved closer to the beetle, casting a shadow over it.

"Chiyo, let's go," She called back. "I have to check on Hisui."

Chiyo's head popped out of the hedge, twigs stuck in her hair.

"Shouldn't I go fetch security or the adults?" She said, walking out and trying her best to look composed.

"If they haven't shown up yet, I doubt we can rely on them," Miyako declared, adjusting her grip on the statue. She stabbed down, cracking the beast's carapace with her leverage. The beetle let out a shrill noise and fought her, but she leaned more into her weapon and twisted until she left ruins of its innards.

Chiyo looked down at the twitching mess below Miyako.

"Wow, who knew you could be cool, Miyako." She mused.

Chiyo's smile wasn't matched by Miyako.

"This isn't cool," She shook her head, leading them towards the dorm while still holding onto her impromptu weapon. 

* * *

A misshapen lump softly landed below the window of Miyako and Hisui's bedroom.

"I'm sealing this place up," Sayoko said. "I don't want you to get shot through the window or something."

The creature skittered away, a black blur with the speed..

Sayoko approached the window, raising her hands towards it. A wall suddenly blocked the view of the outside. It was strange looking, sort of transparent. Just a little bit.

There were eight solid looking portraits on the wall, pictures of cities and a few outlandish locations that Hisui wasn't sure were even real. She wasn't sure what that blasted wasteland with melting clocks was meant to be. Nor did she want to know.

"We should have left the room," Hisui was saying. "If you think we're in so much danger."

While both girls admired the addition to the room, they didn't see the invader cross beneath the light of a baby blue lamp that stood tall in the corner. It was some sort of insect, maybe, if you ignored all the extra legs.

The insect dove into a bunch of plushies arrayed around the lamp as if resting against its surface. It used its pincers to pull a large nearby dolphin closer. It would serve well to camouflage its hairly, oily-colored exterior from the approaching girls.

Sayoko had hopped onto Miyako's bed, reached up for an aluminum pole hung over it, then hopped back down to the ground. She gave it a spin, noting its odd weight distribution. Was this thing a flagpole?

"Your cousin has weird stuff."

"We could ask her about it," Hisui archly responded. The redhead sat down on the bed, pushing aside her backpack carelessly oThe redhead sat down on Miyako's bed, carelessly pushing her own backpack off and onto the floor. Now wasn't the time to worry about cleanliness. She hugged the doll of her husband that had replaced all the dolls Miyako used to keep up on the bed with her. "If we went outside and helped her."

Hisui hoped she got a chance to make Miyako one too.

"It's safer in these rooms than in the hall." Sayoko responded, nodding over where the windows used to be.

"Seems like we're sitting ducks," Hisui sourly said. She looked at the exit to the room. It had been thoroughly blocked by a teddy bear's arms and face. "Did you do that when I wasn't watching?"

"Maybe."

The scent soaking through to the creature from its surroundings wasn't the same as its target. It needed visual confirmation. Having decided to do so, it crawled out of the pile of dolls and away from the light. It went up some books that had flown out of the bag and ducked under the half-opened backpack's shadow. The bug extended its neck like a periscope, peering up at the bed to confirm its target's position.

Sayoko finished twirling the pole, deciding she liked it enough to keep a hold on it. She walked over towards Hisui, grabbed her hand, and pulled her away from Miyako's bed. Both of them stopped in front of the teddy bear shaped door.

"The school built these rooms to let us draw more of our powers while we're inside them." The battered girl explained to her friend, "We run this place, our rules call the shots, and nothing can get in unless we want it to come inside."

"How industrious." She distractedly said.

"This is a safe place," Sayoko continued, annoying Hisui a little. "Nothing can hurt me."

"Like that brute earlier?"

"Ouch." Sayoko spun the pole like an oversized baton. "Good one."

A trace of hurt was hidden in the glib answer.

Guilt bloomed in Hisui's breast, making her shoulders slump. she averted her eyes from Sayoko, resting then on the wall she'd created. One of the portraits caught her eye, drawing her away from the larger girl. It was of a park she recognized in Misaki, where Kohaku and Hisui had taken breaks together often. Hisui made a note to ask Sayoko about it another day. If they still counted as friends after tonight.

A low hiss came out from the insect, segmented coils that pumped chitinous legs fowards across the wooden ground, pushing itself closer to Hisui.

"I'm sorry," she mumbled.

"You're stressed," Sayoko shrugged. She made a sluggish wagging motion with the pole. "I'll bop you one another time."

The redhead pressed her forehead against the wall, unknowingly getting closer to the insect. She could faintly see something beyond the wall, but not nearly enough.

The creature retreated behind a dresser when Sayoko approached with the pole. Space was at a premium. Stuffed among the clothing was a stack of leaflets full of math equations covered with red ink.

"She'll be fine," Sayoko tried to encourage her. "It's too bad you haven't been to the classes."

Hisui took the bait, knowing her friend was trying to distract her.

"Classes?"

"They teach newbies how to bring out their power."

Hisui remembered Lady Akiha's strength.

"Isn't that dangerous?" She whispered, falling back onto a chair.

"In controlled areas like these, of course." Sayoko moved herself stiffly to stand at attention next to Hisui, holding the flag pole like a spear. "It only takes place during next week's medical exams."

"Good timing," Hisui mused.

"Not implying anything," Sayoko drawled. "But that bug seems focused on your sister, and you don't know nothing, so this seems the best time to get the drop on you."

Hisui gripped her seat's rests.

She looked up when she felt Sayoko's hand rest on her head, ruffling her hair.

"It's cool, it's cool," Sayoko flashed her a crooked smile. "I'm a helper."

Hisui's returning smile was weak.

"Why don't you lie down on your bed?" Sayoko wondered. "Now, don't give me that look, I'm not saying to take a nap."

Hisui stood up from her chair. She made sure not to throw her whole weight as she got on her bed. She didn't want the springs to scratch up her sister's chemistry set.

The insect bristled in anticipation.

It skittered out from Hisui's dresser beneath her bed. Finding a wooden case in its way, the creature pushed itself against its banged up surface, moving it in spite of the case's size.

Sticky fangs slid ever so slightly out of facial numbs on its head. No second bite was needed. 

* * *

"What are you doing?"

"Hey, stop, don't you dare open that door, Jui-En."

"Go away!"

"Have you gone insane?!"

"Jui-En?"

The young man strode past women while he made his way through the female dorms, ignoring their confused and increasingly beligerent calls. His intense expression dissuaded them from doing more than speaking. On the inside, his turbulent emotions were whipping about in a fury.

'Damn idiots should've listened to Father,' He swayed, gripping the banister while ascending. 'Well, it's their funeral. The Heir will destroy them. I'll take care of his woman.'

He felt especially gratified once he started hearing the shrieks of surprise and fear downstairs.

He knew it, his father had been right.

"Out of the way!" Jui-En didn't have time for societal concerns, pushing past an anxious looking girl that was lingering at the top.

"Eh?" The freshman was too shocked, nearly falling.

Jui-En's highly arched brow lowered a bit.

"If you're going to do nothing, hide in your room. Your territory shouldn't be breached. They're not after your life, but it'll be taken if you don't get out of the way of the tide." He said.

"What?"

"Don't get in the way of people with important errands to do." Jui-En slapped her shoulder. It was hard enough to probably leave a mark in the morning. The pain snapped her out of her stunned state. "Show some spine, you're a half blood dammit!"

She stuttered something while she ran away.

"Good," He grunted. "At least you did that much."

Jui-En was already heading down the short hall towards the south. From there he'd turn left and reach the Heiress' room. Hopefully before his efforts were rendered pointless. He would not be pleased if his reward for ruining his reputation was a sack of meat. The upperclassman would far prefer a snide attitude over failure.

He felt her the moment he was within twenty feet.

Jui-En's stride became even more confident as he raced towards the door. Sayoko was behind that door. He couldn't fathom why she was using her power to protect the room, the Heiress was clearly stronger.

He hoped he could lean on her sentimentality a while longer.

"It's me," He told the mundane looking door. "Let me in."

He reached for the knob, ready to receive painful feedback if he misread the situation.

The door swung open without a hint of resistance.

From the poleaxed looks on both of the women, they were almost as surprised as Jui-En felt at the moment.

"What are you doing here?!" Hisui shot up.

Sayoko stared at him.

He would have to consider its meaning another time. The distortion was inside. The alien presence that neither the Heiress or Sayoko could have known was there.

Jui-En remembered it well. The night he had seen the devastating effects firsthand. It was the same night that he had seen Akiha Tohno's stony expression as they sat with his family and watched a half blood die in agony

The insect crawled out of cover.

"Sayoko, throw it there!" He barked.

Aluminum flashed.

The guts of the creature were smeared across the ground. 

* * *

The unholy light emanating from the beetle's eyes finally went out.

They had lost.

Its carapace split apart. What had once been a single layer of shimmering armor became thousands of black ants. The army oozed off the corpse of the beetle, glittering in the night. They marched over the shattered bodies of hundreds of ants that Miyako had pierced.

Tiny feelers and small, sharp jaws clicked as one.

The arms spasmed, clawing the dirt.

They burst off the main body and fell to the ground. The inchor poured out of the corpse and onto the arms. Their rigid, spiked frames shuddered and began to crack apart.

From within, a host of winged insects angrily buzzed as they swept out from within their cocoons.

Far from the main body, the only leg that managed to survive Miyako's attack whole twitched. Long feelings curled away from it as it stirred awake. Beady little eyes opened. What Miyako had assumed to be sharp talons on the legs extended outwards, becoming smaller legs for this creature. Once it finished assessing its damage, the centipede rose up.

The arrayed force of insects headed away from the dorm. 

* * *

The door that stood in the way looked old. Old in a way that made you worried if you were committing a crime if you touched it. It had carvings in it of artistic depictions of hell, or some sort of purgatory. Figures were stretched out in painful looking positions with their eyes and mouths wide open as they were held up over flames.

However, the door wasn't an art piece.

Larval insects nested within the pores of the unfortunate figures. Spiders crawled along the surface of the stone. One darted into the ear canal of one of the men.

Did the eye twitch? Or was it a trick of the light?

Regardless...

A bloody knife flashed multiple times.

The door crumbled into either rusted pieces, wet pieces, or shattered nests of insects.

A trembling man in his sixties huddled against far away from the door. He was naked. Several recent cuts and lashes flayed his skin open. Parts of it were green and others had a bluish tint.

A smell of waste drifted from below, through large grates.

He held a stained bowl over his head like an impromptu weapon.

"S-shiki?" He blinked, second guessing himself. It wasn't the first time he had been fooled. "Is that really you?"

Shiki Tohno walked into the light provided by the bulb swinging overhead. The man's clothes were covered in inchor, but he showed no signs of injury. His blue eyes blazed with renewed light beneath his glassed when he took in the skeletal frame of the doctor.

"Let's get you out of here, Sougen."

"But..." Sougen Jinan flinched. "The creatures..."

Shiki stepped aside, letting Sougen look down the hall.

Several corpses were scattered. They were nightmareish fusion of man, insect, and beast. All were slaughtered to the one.

A man that had caught Sougen with tumorous growths on his upper arms hiding spinnerets was cleaved down the center by a brass candlestick holder. It was still stuck in his torso. His second set of arms, made out of the same natural armor of a crab, had been ripped off.

They were stuck in the face and chest of a wolf with a set of mandibles extending out of its mouth.

The hallway itself showed damage as well. The eastern wall had been cleaved in a spiraling pattern. A large section of the southern wall was gouged out. Sougen could see several people crushed beneath a segment of the fallen wall. The insectal chitin exoskeleton beneath their torn skin hadn't provided any protection from that.

A hive of dragonfly and scorpion mixes burned on the ground, having fallen off from the roof at one point.

Shiki took off the collared coat he wore.

"They won't be a problem." The younger man kindly said. "Tokie misses you."

The old man froze.

A flash of another young woman appeared in his eyes.

"No!" He tried to pull away, but he was too weak. "I-is she alright?!"

"It's oka-"

Sougen's breath stank as he pulled Shiki's head close.

"She isn't hurt, is she?!"

Shiki's brow furrowed. Tokie was never in any danger. She had called him when those men had abducted her father.

"Everything will be fine," He pulled away a bit. "I'll just have you and Tokie moved somewhere safe-"

Sougen flinched. The good will burned like acid. His breath was uneven.

"I told them Hisui was human!" He slurred. "Or they would've... Tokie..."

Shiki tightened his hold on Sougen.

"I was prepared for something like this," He tried to soothe the older man. "It was going to come out sooner or later."

"I've betrayed you and my students!"

Shiki wrapped Sougen in his coat.

"I'll take care of this," He declared.


	5. Chapter 5

Tsukihime is property of Type-Moon. Any additional references belong to their respective companies.

Chapter 5: Timeout

*-*-*

There was practically an inquistion going on the next morning. The adults were gathered around the remains of the monster, keeping the area cordoned off. It seemed they had some sort of way of breaking it down to try and trace whoever had attacked, but it was messy.

No one wanted to get potentially toxic fluids on a child, so they were all trapped inside the dorm. Some of the more bored students had peered out the windows, but had nearly puked. One especially sensitive girl had to be taken upstairs, hand held the whole way.

Many bowed out within ten minutes.

A few stayed out of sheer morbid curiosity.

Turned out that Ms. Gima was something of an insect lover. The young woman was practically pulling out her hair. She stormed up and down the body of the insect, furiously pointing out something wrong whenever she saw it.

"That isn't right!" She shouted. "Why- Why did they do that to you?!"

The first person that had just mentioned 'magecraft' in a dismissive way had practically been throttled.

"Geez," Chiyo stepped away from the windows. "I better get back and see how the others are doing."

Sayoko was limping away from Christina and Hana, both of the second floor's Resident Assistants looking peeved. Looked like neither of them could get anything out of Sayoko about the truth. Hana stormed away towards the break room; Christina blew out a puff of sand as she gazed sharply at the younger girl's back.

"Guess they're in trouble?" Chiyo asked Sayoko.

"I don't know what it has to do with me," She scratched her cheek, the patch there covering her bruises. "They should go yell at the bug."

The older girl was pretty thick.

"Miyako and the other two are talking to the principal." The younger girl shrugged. "We're the only ones they can vent on now."

"I wish I could command a bug army," Sayoko dreamily mused. "I could get all the honey I could ever eat."

Chiyo shifted in place awkwardly.

*-*-*

To say Hee-joon Jui-en was a stocky man was like saying the ocean was wet. Or you could call the principal of Sadatoyama Private Academy a mountain with a perpetual five o'clock shadow dusting his harsh cheeks. His presence made the mahogany grain desk in front of him look thin, like a piece of cardboard that could be snapped over your knee.

Hisui looked down, squatting a little while testing her knees.

"Congratulations, Ki-ha; you've managed to succeed. I was expecting to have to order a hearse. Keep it up, at this rate you will soon graduate to disappointment." He rumbled, nodding at his son. The man ignored his son's dark expression, leveraging himself up to greet Hisui. Hee-joon's palm pressed hard against the grain of his desk, causing the entire thing to creak in protest. "Good morning, Mistress Tohno, my apologies for last night's occurrences."

Hisui leaned towards her cousin.

"I... that wasn't your fault," She said, uneasy around his presence. "Or your son's fault either, sir."

The younger Jui-en looked at Hisui.

"That so?" Hee-joon grunted. "Still, an assassin got dangerously close to you."

Hisui gripped her arm, nodding.

"We need to come up with a plan of attack-" Hee-joon started to say.

"They did," Miyako cut to the heart. "And you seem awfully helpful."

The principal turned beady eyes on her.

"What are you implying, child?" He softly asked. "Be mindful with your words..."

Miyako scowled.

"I think this is a set up; Your son showed up at the night of the attack, his girlfriend befriended Hisui long beforehand, and neither of you two seem especially worried or surprised by what happened last night!"

"Miyako!"

Hisui shot the girl a look, afraid that she might've said too much.

Miyako shook her head, acknowledging Hisui's surprised look with a look.

"They need to tell us where they stand, Hisui." The younger girl said, crossing her arms. "Shiki left me with you to protect you."

Ki-ha jumped to his father's defense.

"Master Tohno was out of the door practically the moment he left Mistress Hisui to our care! We didn't even have a chance to meet with him!"

Miyako ignored the son in favor of the father, staring at him accusatorily.

Hee-joon laughed.

"Nothing in this world is given away," The principal ambled around his desk, a metallic sound ringing with his steps. "You are right to be suspicious of our aid in a situation like this."

He stood up carefully, one pantsleg conspicuously unfilled.

"Walk with me, daughters of Tohno." Hee-joon gestured at the eastern wall. "This crippled man shows you no ill-will, and you both can easily outrun me if I do."

His son nodded, walking over towards a globe stand flanked by a triad of chairs in the other corner of the room. Ki-ha pressed down on a small portion of the globe. In response, a bookcase on the wall swung open with a clicking noise.

Hee-joon walked past the bookcase and into a hall behind it.

Ki-ha offered Hisui a strained smile, stepping back from the globe. He seemed to be heading towards the door out of the office.

"Good day."

"Where are you going?" Miyako asked. "Going to beat your girlfriend some more?"

Ki-ha glared at Miyako, slamming the door shut behind him.

"You didn't need to do that..." Hisui sighed, feeling confused about the younger man.

The younger girl shrugged, her feelings more clear cut.

"Daddy issues left, but what if he tries to do something while we got our backs turned? I don't like the fact they didn't say anything to Shiki, either. They must have known something was up." Miyako insisted. "What do you think, Hisui? Should we follow? I'll leave it up to you."

Hisui bit her lip.

*-*-*

Ki-ha leaned against the front of the door, closing his eyes.

"Your father was kind," Sayoko asked him. "I'm happy for you, Ki-ha."

He looked at her, standing on the other side of the secretary's desk.

"How do you know?" He wondered, slightly accusatory.

"You're not frowning."

Ki-ha touched his lips, causing Sayoko to smile at him.

"Where's Miss Hye?" He asked, to try and get the topic away from himself.

"Chiyo distracted her." Sayoko briefly glanced at the empty chair, walking around the desk towards him. "She's good at throwing her voice."

Ki-ha furrowed his brow.

"Really good." She insisted in a low voice. "She made it sound like an ambulance outside."

Ki-ha held up a hand, preventing Sayoko from drawing any closer. He had to clear things up. If only for the sake of his own understanding, if nothing else.

"Why'd you let me enter your territory?" He sternly started. "What sort of woman would keep her faith in a man that abused her?"

"You always want to help."

He scoffed.

"That's stupid."

"You kept Ah from doing anything to me." Sayoko looked aside, playing with a lock of her hair. "I don't think it's so stupid."

Ki-ha grunted, nudging past her.

A shadow crossed Sayoko's face.

"Thank you for saving us." She lightly bit on her lower lip. "I'll always believe in you."

Ki-ha stopped walking. Then he raised a hand and waved. His head was a little higher on the way downstairs.

*-*-*

Julia Hye was feeling hotheaded as she stomped down the first floor. The short woman was gathering up a head of steam by the moment, bullishly pushing past a few students despite being shorter. She shuddered as she heard a wet, pulpy noise come from the bottom of her shoes again. The secretary looked down at her feet, adjusting her round glasses in the process.

Nothing.

A giggle could be heard.

She'd already wasted the last ten minutes on a wild goose. Whoever was leading her on had directed her on a looping course. It eventually lead her outside, but not before thoroughly wasting her time.

She heard her drinking partner, Mana Gima, call out to her through the open window facing the courtyard, stopping her in her tracks.

"Don't get so mad!" The teacher was smiling at her. "It was just a silly prank."

A few of the men dissecting the insect chuckled, making the secretary fume.

Hye's glare took care of the last few kids lingering in the hall.

"Don't encourage them! This is a sick prank, especially considering that beast just attacked! I really thought that thing had cursed me." Julia threw her body into a whipping motion of her arms, gesturing fearfully at the corpse of the monster. "Before too long they'd try to steal the school's mascot and string it up on the front yard!"

She wrung her hands at the thought.

"Why would anyone want to curse you? You're practically our second mascot, Hye! Everyone loves the fact you'd fit inside a carry on bag at airports!" One of the other female teacher's laughed, but it had a little edge.

Julia scowled, it wasn't her fault she had a touch of the fey.

If anyone said she had more than a touch, she'd whop them one.

"No one would do that to Norita-kun either." Mana assured her with a steady voice. "Beavers are nature's builders."

"It's a slippery slope!"

The secretary exclaimed.

"We're all young once." Mana sighed. "You don't want to be the kind of petty adult that'd hunt down a kid for doing a harmless joke, right?"

Julia fell silent.

"Riiight?" Mana stared at Julia.

"It was a stupid prank." Julia pouted.

"You need a hobby." Mana declared, before turning to bark out an order. "Don't touch that! We don't know if it'll explode! I don't want to be covered with curses, do you?!"

The biology teacher who had been thoughtfully feeling up a oily gland dropped it, trying his best to look innocent.

"I got my eye on you, Romero." Mana warned, giving him the stink eye. "Anyway, just chill out, Julia."

Romero leapt into the conversation.

"I can distract you by taking you out on a date, Hye!"

"No."

Romero drooped miserably, sinking up to his knees in the earth.

*-*-*

The straight hallway gave way to a descending staircase.

"My family was given the sacred duty to protect the students that live at this school," Hee-joon kept a hand on the wall as he led the way. "I had never thought the day would come I would have to use the tools your family gave us against my own clansmen."

Hisui recalled the foreign teachers and students she had seen in the halls.

"Why?" Miyako demanded. "What did Hisui do to them?"

Hisui could guess.

"It's because I'm human, isn't it?" The redhead prodded. "They found out, didn't they?"

Hee-joon stopped walking, keeping his back towards both Tohno women.

"Yes and no. We came across your ...circumstances by accident. My family had been looking for a way to overthrow Master Shiki."

Miyako tensed, ready for a fight.

"So you really are an enemy?" She asked. "I should've figured it out when you showed us your secret door!"

Hee-joon's laughter bounced and splashed against the stones, stirring him into motion as he walked ahead of the schoolgirl.

"No, child, he's the truest Demon Lord I've seen since Makihisa."

Miyako glanced back at her cousin, befuddled.

"What does he mean?" She asked, completely lost.

Hee-joon provided the answer.

"He's the strongest killer."

Hisui jolted, pushing past a stunned Miyako. Her brow furrowed and her lips thinned into a single line while she rapidly descending the steps to catch up. She grabbed hold of the man's shoulder.

"He's no murderer." She denied him. "Shiki is a kind man."

"And that's the problem," Hee-joon glanced over his shoulder. "Our people need strength, not kindness."

Miyako's lips puckered up, distaste turning her nose up.

"Our people need the strength of Tohno." He visibly double backed, shaking his head. "No, not strength..."

They walked out into a large open room.

From the stairs, they emerged into an wide, domed chamber of smoothly carved stone - more akin to something out of a fairy tale castle than a Japanese private school. There wasn't any visible electrical lighting, but at the center of the octagonal space, an eerie green glow emanated from the concentric circles of symbols carved into the slabs of the floor - illuminating the room.

Within the circles, there was an ugly, misshapen stone - or so Hisui imagined at first glance. On closer examination, it appeared to be carved in the likeness of a human heart - anatomically accurate to the diagrams she'd once seen in the books on human physiology Kohaku kept at her bedside.

From where the petrified organ sat, arteries began to extend outwards across the stone floor - following the grooves between the tiles until they hit the walls, and then climbing vinelike to the domed ceiling. There, they penetrated outwards through narrow crevices of the blocks - grotesquely pulsating with some sort of unseen fluid.

Hee-joon spun to face them.

"We need balance." He concluded. "We'll kill for it, if we must."

Miyako whipped her head, throwing her arms forwards.

"That doesn't make sense!" She shouted.

"You're too young to know our history," Hee-joon answered, letting her anger splash against him. "We were but mindless beasts, lost to the vices of our inner natures. We carousled through the night. We whored and slaughtered and glut ourselves on the feast of humanity spread before our tables. Then the original Tohno arrived from the old province of Mutsu."

He placed a hand on the heart.

Hisui could almost hear Kohaku speaking to her, as if she was still with her.

She shook her head, throwing the slight daze off.

"It was with 'balance' that our people, the half bloods of north-east Asia, were united. Their blood carried the purest echoes of greatness, the power of our great and abominable Ancestors. Yet they still had a iron grip over their humanity, unlike us half bloods. We could do nothing but bow our head before our superiors..."

Hisui's eyes flashed, remembering a curtain of fire spilling forth from Akiha's brow.

"They used the power to guide the half bloods," Hisui quoted, remembering steamy nights standing behind Akiha with Kohaku. "From there, they united the half bloods, and expanded."

"Lady Akiha would have been the greatest," Hee-joon's face fell. "She proposed for us to attempt to bring in half bloods of other lands here."

"Then just talk to Shiki!" Miyako spun between both of them, stuck between both of the older people. "Why did they have to attack Hisui?! The Tohno are the leaders, right? She's one, too!"

The man ran a hand across his left leg, only feeling fabric beneath his fingertips.

"Even the Tohno aren't above fault," Hee-joon declared. "Lord Makihisa's errors created the bastard that killed Lady Akiha-"

Hisui's lowered her head, completing the thought.

"They think Shiki is making the same mistakes."

Hee-joon looked past Hisui, more aptly through her, and towards the staircase for a moment.

"In this generation, Lord Shiki has chosen to ignore the considerations of his forebears to serve his sentimentality." He agreed, as if it didn't necessarily concern him. "It's been agreed among the elders of the clans that Lord Shiki singularly holds the potential to captain the advance of our people."

Miyako tensed.

"You better," Her breath burst out in a shout. "Not finish that thought!"

"However, certain parties feel that his 'lapses' must be corrected." Hee-joon stopped speaking at them, eyes refocusing on Hisui herself. "Lapses like yourself, Lady Hisui."

He dug into his pocket, fumbling with a knife before dragging out a line of blood from his palm.

Hee-joon swapped his hand across it. The slathered layer of blood soaked into the stone. It trembled, dust shaken off its surface with a deep shudder. The room sympathetically quaked as well, causing both girls to sway as they lost their balance.

Vines burst out of the ground, swarming and wrapping around the heart.

A steady thudding, pumping noise started up from the depths of the earth.

The glow of the carved circles shifted from viridian to crimson red.

"What's going on-" Miyako demanded, scrambling to stand next to Hisui. "Did you show your real colors?!"

Hisui followed the principal's gaze towards the stairs.

A bloodied schoolgirl leaned against the side of the entryway, staring at her plaintatively.

"Sayoko?" Hisui started, but was halted by Miyako's firm grip.

Hee-joon laughed, smiling at Miyako's awareness.

"We have more rats in our midst than I expected," He wrapped his wound up with a napkin. "It's time I clear our home of its infestation."

Sayoko's expression went dark, standing up straighter. From her pocket, she took out a wickedly curved knife. The fresh coating of blood on it made Hisui's heart jump to her throat.

"Sayoko...!" Hisui yelped, hauled back by Miyako.

The named girl smiled at Hisui over Miyako's shoulder.

It wasn't kind.

"I'll be done with those children before the Lords' Heart finishes casting me out." A male voice came out of the girl's mouth, devoid of any sympathy. "Step away before I'm forced to deal with you again, Jui-en."

The principal took a step forwards, cracking his knuckles.

"So it's revenge, is it?" The assassin wondered, "That's fine too."

*-*-*

It wasn't actually Sayoko.

The true nature of the attack began to dawn on Hisui when a second iteration of her friend abruptly manifested - shimmering with bands of electronic snow like a broadcast from an analogue television.

Then, there was a third; and then a fourth; and then, simply many.

"Bunshin no Jutsu?" shouted Miyako, desperately fending off the duplicates. "Since when was Mihara a ninja?"

"She isn't," said Hee-joon. He pulled out a small rod from within suit. He caught one of the knives, turning the blade aside. The metal bent while the wood of his weapon held firm. "This is just an extension of her Territory. She has the ability to imprint her existence into media. The clones aren't actually around you. They're being projected directly into our minds through the speaker broadcast."

Miyako swayed around one of their sloppy attacks.

"They sure as hell feel solid for illusions," said Miyako, delivering a vicious upper-cut. "She was a traitor all along?"

"This isn't Sayoko," said Hisui, tightening the grip of her fists. "She's being controlled somehow..."

Hee-joon laughed.

"That's how he got the drop on me decades ago, yes." The principal had a bitter glint in his eyes. "He knows what to use against his targets."

"Well spotted," said the assassin, speaking through the lips of all of the Sayokos at once. "She a weapon to employ against you and a good hostage."

Hisui glanced at Hee-joon, noticing how stiff his expression was at the moment.

He caught her look.

"It happened to me, too." He nodded at his leg. "I was too sentimental."

Miyako's crushing blow pinned one of the doppleganger's to a wall, and causing it to crumble on top of the attacker seconds later.

"We can't stay down here forever! She's going to swarm us at this rate. Everyone, run this way, hurry!" She waved, pointing towards the staircase.

Hisui started to move, but Hee-joon caught her hand. Before she could say anything, he pressed her palm squarely on the Lords' Heart. A thick coat of ash came off on her hand, causing her to look at him strangely.

"Hurry," He said. "There's still time for your friend."

"But-" She started.

"Just run!" He boomed. "Don't look back!"

Hee-joon pushed Hisui towards her friend, moving as rearguard while the girls ran up the stairs.

A visible distortion flowed out between the bricks, reforming Sayoko's image. She was rejoined by pulped versions of herself. Their damage looked visibly worse, but it was already healing.

"Oh, that's new, Hee-joon!" One of the Sayoko cooed. "Are you adopting the barbarian's habits, too?"

Another unpleasantly laughed.

"You're playing at being yama?" She mocked, running her hand against her forehead. "You might accidentally send this host to take my spot in hell, instead!"

A third eyed her bent knife distastefully.

"I'll have settle to ripping your throat off with my bare hands this time."

"I'm willing to carry that weight." Hee-joon said. He struck the wall with the rod. A haze of demonic might swept out from the heart, catching the entire room in its blast radius. Immediately, a piercing wail erupted from the walls. Lamentations and desperate curses rose from the floors, walls, and descended form the ceiling.

"Make it stop!" They shrieked. All the Sayoko shrieked in agony, falling to their knees. One by one the images dispersed, unable to hold their form. The survivors huddled together, covering one of them with their bodiess. Invisible claw marks ripped chunks out of their bodies, dispering them into clumps of shadow substance that dissolved into static. "What did you do, Hee-joon?!"

Hee-joon stood firm, but blood began to ooze out from his ears.

"My, you've steeped yourself in wickedness, haven't you?" He laughed shakily, sweat pouring from his brow. "This would just have been debiliating to you once, Wei."

The surviving Sayoko lunged at him, with maddened eyes and clawing fingers as she went for his throat.

Hee-joon was feeble in his stance as well, so it was all he could do to meet her charge.

"Go to hell!" Wei roared, spittle flying. "You supremist pig!"

They grappled like frenzied animals, the curses flying around them whittling both their titanic strength enough to make it a stalemate.

"You first!" Hee-joon answered, throwing the animal off him with a shout. "You're not laying a hand on Hisui Tohno."

The assassin shook his head, coming back to himself.

"Hisui?" Pain induced madness fled from his eyes. "Dammit!"

Hee-joon hobbled forwards, but his leg was knocked out from under him by the sudden materialization of another copy of his student. A third smashed the side of his head with a dazing kick. He answered their attacks with crushing blows of his rod, breaking them into nothing. More of them dove on top of him, raining blows on him.

Wei shook his head.

"I'll present her skull to you before the day is over, Hee-joon!"

His form winked out, joined by the others that were assaulting the principal.

The man rolled onto his side, wheezing for breath. He spit out a tooth. His face was entirely swollen on an entire side, and he seemed to be favoring his left ribs when he tried and failed to sit up.

"Fool," Hee-joon laughed, liking what he saw. "You should've killed me when you had the chance."

Red strands of hair were rising from the fluid spreading out from the heart.

A single voice, young and female rose from the din of the throng of curses.

"Hisui." Akiha Tohno whispered. "Hisui?"

Voices wailed.

"Kohaku and I are so lonely here..."

*-*-*

The stairway felt longer going up than it had when they had descended. It felt like they had already passed that electric torch three times. The unpleasant paranoia dogging them the whole way up made it feel much more claustropic too.

Especially when a Sayoko had literally walked through a wall to attack them.

"Do you think principal is okay?" Hisui asked. "There were lots more Sayoko back there."

Miyako was limping a little from a bad call, so was a bit short of breath and patience.

"Worry about yourself first!" She snapped.

Hisui's expression went timid, but then her lips firmed.

"Miyako! He's a friend!" She barked, stern. "Shiki taught you better."

The younger girl winced, holding her hand up.

"Sorry, but he's fine. Gramps is holding them back. He's okay. Otherwise we'd be dealing with way more of them. Guy is really strong, really." Miyako bunny hopped over a pair of arms, bouncing off a wall and coming back in a spectacular elbow drop that crushed the head that was rising from the ground. Whatever the Sayoko image was made out of spread thick against the shattered steps.

Hisui didn't point out that Miyako was babbling. She didn't want to make her cousin panic. More than she obviously already was, from the way she was excessively wiping at her face.

It now made the redhead feel guilty too.

Miyako helped Hisui over the steps, while offering some contrary advice.

"Just stay behind me, but within arms reach. I need to be able to grab you at any time, but you'll get caught if they get past me. Why aren't they attacking from the floor?"

Hisui tried to calm her down.

"Magic?" The older girl guessed. "The air feels lighter, compared to how it was in the basement."

"Don't ask me the specifics," said Miyako. "I don't know them any better than you. You can sort of just assume that it's like demonic abilities, except that instead of biological instinct, it's intentionally and artificially produced."

The smaller girl warily kept her eyes to any open areas where an enemy might appear - obviously unused to dealing with literal swarm of opponents.

Hisui wanted to comment that she'd picked up enough self defense to protect herself somewhat, but it felt as if making the comment would disrupt Miyako's focus. Then again, she doubted that the little she had learned from Shiki could handle this sort of scenario. It would be like demanding to be allowed into an olympic meet when she had only practiced for a month.

The door came into view after several more attacks.

"There!" Miyako's eyes lit up.

Both of the girls bolted out from the staircase, wary expression on their faces. They shared a grim look when they saw the body of the secretary on the ground. Hisui moved forwards, but was halted by Miyako. The younger girl shook her head once.

Priorities.

"Where's the AV room?" Hisui reluctantly asked.

"Follow me!"

*-*-*

The Tohno girls didn't so much burst into the room as stride past a shattered frame and door. There was already a confrontation going underway, with the younger Jui-En being swarmed by copies of Sayoko. The real one was standing on the far side of the room, shaking her head over and over. She was hunched over the controls to the school's public announcement systems, gripping the controls.

Miyako went into action, hopping over a desk and cold clocking one of the clones with all her strength.

Her fist punctured the chest of the clone, and it burst apart, dissipating into a mist of video static. As the last of its limbs unraveled, three more clones manifested - advancing upon Miyako from all sides.

'Curses are without limit,' Hisui recalled Miss Akiha saying, once. 'They are without sense, and without restriction. This is their nature.'

Brute force wouldn't allow them to save Sayoko.

"Sayoko!" Hisui called out. "It's me, Hisui!"

Miyako's eyes flicked over towards her. The younger girl must have seen something she liked in Hisui's stance. Miyako turned away from Hisui and back towards their attackers.

"That killer did something to you." Hisui continued, knowing she had Miyako's support. "I don't know what it was. It must have been painful. It has to be something unnatural."

Miyako slammed an elbow through one of the many angry faces Sayoko was showing them. Miyako swept two legs clear off the body of another. Miyako couldn't stop until Hisui got through to her friend.

"Are you afraid?" The redhead asked. "Will he do something worse if you don't do this?"

Miyako stomped the ground hard, causing three of their attackers to lose their balance.

"It doesn't have to be like this, Sayoko." Hisui kept pleading. "Let me help you."

Miyako stepped into one of the clones' guards, slamming her halfway across the office with a palm strike.

"Just like you helped me before."

*-*-*

More and more kept coming, taxing Miyako's reflexes. It was impossible to stop a tide only with her small body. They were going to break through to Hisui and kill her.

Miyako stepped into the guard of the schoolgirl charging Hisui and slammed her nose into her skull.

This wasn't the self-defense that she'd been taught.

Miyako pulped a leg, rendering another attacker a non-issue.

It was desperate.

The small girl's punch pistoned into a throat.

It was sad.

Miyako was finally swarmed. Her limbs restrained, heavy bodies came down on her hard. She thrashed about, slamming into the crowd pinning her to the ground.

Physical strength was her only advantage, and now, against an opponent whose favored tactic was quantity over quality, it had failed her.

*-*-*

The legwork was there; the evasive lightfootedness that Sensei had repeatedly drilled into her at the start of her lessons, which she'd finally become confident in adopting of her own volition. Rather than merely holding ground per her training, however, Hisui was gradually advancing - somehow grasping the movements of the swarm of clones on instinct, and minimally adjusting her gait to sidestep the ever-evolving onslaught.

'I can dodge?' she thought, surprised. 'I can understand what they're saying.'

Miyako had long ago asserted that martial arts was a variety of nonverbal communication. Hisui hadn't really comprehended what she meant at the time, but she felt that now she was beginning to grasp it.

There was a certain grammatical logic to combat, defined in rhythm and motion trajectories and the occupation of space. Even if she couldn't yet parse any precise intentions or meaning, terrified resignation was blatant enough as an underlying theme to the clones' movements overall that it was impossible for Hisui to misread.

Her opponents weren't uniform in their behavior, but the majority weren't acting with the natural grace of a human being. There was something robotically clumsy about them - simplistic and excessively forceful, with unmeasured overcompensation in the followthrough. Were it really Sayoko controlling the replicas, Hisui couldn't imagine them behaving like this.

'It's not that I've improved,' thought Hisui. 'Rather, it's that they aren't very good at all ...'

But that wasn't correct either. If it were, Miyako and the others wouldn't have had so difficult a time.

'No, there's something familiar about this feeling,' Hisui thought, narrowly dodging a blow to the stomach, and casting a glance to the floor beside her.

Her eyes widened.

Extending from the soles of her shoes - or rather, extending toward - perfectly straight lines of blood trailed across the floor in parallel, sharply tracing an angular course from the basement stairwell like pathways on a circuitboard.

'This ... this is ...'

Hisui's inattention was punished. She was slammed into the ground by a thrown segment of the principal's desk. The countless shades cackled, but the one that had ripped off a portion of the desk stood behind the line of encoraching threats.

"So that's your ability?" Sayoko's face asked, but a man's voice came out of her mouth. "Simply mimicking your little friend's motions..."

Countless blows rained on the redhead, causing her to cry out.

"Won't save you."

The pain blossomed across her body - an accumulation of bruising strikes that overwhelmed her ability to properly think. But at the edge of her mind, just beyond the boundaries of her being, the voices were saying something:

They were here for her.

They would be here for as long as she needed them to be. This was her right by blood.

Hisui opened her eyes, glaring up at the replicas that crowded about her.

"I accept," she said.

The blood answered.

*-*-*

Hee-joon cursed his aging body as he stumbled away from the corpse of his old friend. His creaking bones and worn out joints struggled to carry him as quickly as they could, but he doubted he'd get to the Tohno girls in time. In his dying breath, Wei had sworn that his partner would take care of them, even if he couldn't do it.

"I've gotten sloppy," He muttered, using the wall as a guide. His arm uselessly dangled at his side. He hated getting old. "My time will be up soon."

Especially since someone would have to answer for the attack.

His nostrils filled with the familiar scent of metal and slight decay. Was he bleeding that profusely from his scrap with the assassin? He dreaded going into another fight this way.

His feet were suddenly moving thorugh something warm and vascous.

The principal glanced down.

Crimson surged upwards from the depths, bubbling and quickly overlaping at his ankles as it rose in a terrifying quickness.

It wasn't a flood.

The blood didn't behave as fluid ought to - swelling and climbing over all surfaces in a decidedly non-Newtonian movement. Dare he say - it seemingly grasped at the stone and pulled itself up. He saw dust fleck off the wall as the blood grabbed at it.

Coating his clothing in a dark crimson gloss, it advanced upwards along his limbs.

The candles along the walls were quickly snuffed out, plunging the room in darkness. The last thing Hee-joon saw was black hair and long, white grasping fingers. An incredible force pushed from down below, and he felt himself carried upwards with the blood.

The door to the basement made a high pitch creak as it was obliterated.

Blood surged out from behind the door, rich and thick enough to knock down the bookcases from the wall nearest it. Several of the copies of Sayoko were knocked off their feet. Hisui and Miyako were both dragged away from their attackers by the pull of the blood, their bodies sliding past legs and through grasping claws. The original Sayoko was dragged down beneath the fluid, her legs buckling beneath her from an irrestible pull at her ankles and thighs exerted below the surface.

Whatever control the assassin possessed over the original Sayoko's abilities were dimmed the second the girl was thoroughly pulled beneath the blood.

A full half of the Sayoko copies stopped dead in their tracks, puppets cut free from their strings. Others started stumbling around drunkenly in the blood, looking quite a sight like victims from a mass murder. The few replicas that were still in the midst of sluggishly pursuing the two Tohno girls ripped free from their grasp were unceremoniously lit ablaze.

The blood that splashed against the bodies of the attackers fell away to reveal crimson strings - and though the clones hadn't so far exhibited any response to pain, they screamed now as their bodies decohered with video static, catching aflame from their extremities.

The assassin stared at the tabeleau, aghast from the sudden shift in dynamics.

Then it stopped mattering.

*-*-*

The school was in an uproar for the next week, classed canceled for the duration while hazmat teams swept through the administration ward. Security teams were constantly surveying the hallways. Armed men and women swept through the forest alongside the edge of the buildings.

It didn't particularly have an effect on two adults, steeped as they were in their own feelings of anxiety.

The principal's secretary, an American woman with icy eyes, was hurriedly rushing through the halls puffing out bits of fog.

A young man trailed close behind her, practically stepping on her ankles every other step.

The following day, Hee-joon's secretary had the dubious pleasure of guiding the leader of her society to his wife and sister's bedsides.

"I can assure you that we'll be doing our utmost to punish the ones that hurt Lady Tohno," She babbled. "The assassin's corpse will even be reanimated if we must, so that their employer faces justice."

"Yes, you do that." Shiki Tohno nearly bit the hapless secretary's head off. "Be quiet."

"...quiet a mouse." She squeaked.

Shiki sighed, glancing at the folder he had been given by the staff. A clip held a picture onto the front, like some sort of sacrifical offering for his growing frustration. The man that had hurt his remaining family had suffered quiet a bit before he died, hadn't he?

He recognized the crimson strings that ran through and coiled around the mummified corpse in the image.

Origami.

But it wasn't the original Origami, at the same time...

"We're here, sir."

Shiki snapped out of his thoughts, as the door was opened by the uneasy looking woman. He brushed past her, walking into a cleanly lit nurse's room. His sister was sleeping in a bed to the right, looking a sight as a mass of bruises covered her entire face. Her side of the room had several chairs arrayed around her bed, and a large bear was resting on the ground next to her bed.

He turned to the left.

His wife's bed only had two chairs next to it, one which was occupied by a sleeping teenage girl.

Hisui was sitting straight up in her bed. The redhead had a split lip that had recently been tended to from the sheen on it, and her left eye was swollen enough that it was completely shut. The other one was a little glassy, probably from whatever medications she was being given. That glassiness went away as she focused on him, and she smiled a tiny, painful smile. One that the old Hisui would never have made in her old life.

"Hisui," He uneasily said her name, stepping towards her. "How... are you feeling?"

Hisui glanced at the folder in his hand.

"Not as bad as it did," She answered. "I got a shot for the pain, but I feel fuzzy."

Shiki uneasily nodded.

The bruising discolored splotches of Hisui's exposed skin, and he couldn't help but clench his jaw. He'd hoped that she would be able to learn to better protect herself, but this wasn't an outcome that he'd anticipated. The academy was supposed to have been a safe place, away from actual danger - an environment of muted adversity for Hisui to prove herself within before facing the trials of society at large.

'But it's better that this happened now, rather than later,' whispered a traitorous part of his mind. 'It's better that it happened while I still have the capacity to protect her.'

And it was true. Given the nature of his health and his status, it was equally probable that he would die soon as it was that he would survive to see grandchildren. The future couldn't be anticipated.

He lingered far from her bed, unsure whether to approach. She took the choice out of his hands, reaching out with her free hand towards him. Hisui took his hand before he could even really sit down next to her, gripping it tightly with trembling fingers.

Hisui had been able to defend herself. Regardless of her injury or suffering, this was a good thing. It really was a good thing, it had to be...

"I'm alright," Hisui said, looking though him. "Really."

Her hand's trembling ceased, and she reached up and cupped his cheek.

"If you get worked up over this, you might faint again." She whispered. "Remember what Sensei said?"

She was still warm.

Shiki forced himself to smile.

"Worry about yourself," He replied.

"But I already have you to worry about me," said Hisui. "Clearly, my job is to worry about you."

Shiki closed his eyes, taking in the warmth of her skin against his own. He wanted to apologize; to tell her that his decision had hurt her; that it was his fault. He wanted to explain his intentions - but the words wouldn't come.

"A relationship can't be a relationship if it's only one-sided, Shiki-san."

He opened his eyes.

"What?"

"You're working hard," said Hisui. "I can tell."

The light in her eyes was resolute, despite her medication.

"You aren't the only one who has to work hard." She shook their joined hands a little. "I'll never rest on my laurels again."

She took a breath, struggling to get her thoughts out in a rush.

"And even if you were alright with me being a burden, I'd never let myself become one as your wife."

Shiki stared at her, at a loss.

"I love you," He blurted.

"Of course you do," said Hisui. "Lady Akiha and sister told me so."

She surprised him with an impish smile.

"But I love you so much more."


End file.
